Diocesan Servers

If you would like to receive system status updates via email automatically, please contact DM.

Sun, May 03, 2009 @ 16:39 - Server shut down by itself twice, possible hardware failure. HD was moved to another machine, and things appear normal as of 15:00 Sunday, May 3. (TW)

Wed, Feb 25, 2009 @ 16:21 - Restarted Server to remedy an FTP Server shutdown. (TW)

Wed, Oct 29, 2008 @ 19:08 - Restarted the old diocesan server to correct a processor utilization issue. Restarted the new diocesan server and attempted other tasks in a failed attempt to recover one group's data. (DM)

Thu, Oct 16, 2008 @ 08:27 - Planned power outage: The diocesan web, mailing list, and public database servers receive internet access via Cathedral High School. A planned power outage at CHS affects the availability of these servers. The connection is running on battery-backup. Ideally there will be NO downtime. However, a brief server outage is possible this morning if the batteries do not hold long enough. (DM)

Wed, Sep 03, 2008 @ 16:13 - After a massive internet outage, diocesan hosted services are back online for everyone. Services were down from approximately 7:15 AM to to 4:00 PM. We are not sure exactly what the culprit was, but we heard it was at our internet provider's internet provider, which is likely in Minneapolis. (DM)

Sun, Aug 31, 2008 @ 15:24 - Restarted to troubleshoot FTP problems. (TW)

Fri, Jul 25, 2008 @ 19:26 - The planned electrical outage for Friday is running much longer than expected, and unknown why. Rumor has it that the power will remain off into Saturday afternoon. Since this crippling power outage only affects two tiny, but critical devices, I have used a non-conventional method to regain some electricity. As of 7:15 PM the power remains off, but the diocesan web servers and mailing lists are again functional. (DM)

Wed, Jul 23, 2008 @ 10:59 - There is a chance that the diocesan web servers (both new and old) and mailing lists will be down for awhile on Friday, July 25. This is due to a planned electrical outage on the campus of Cathedral High School, who provides the internet connection for these servers

Long-Standing Limitations & Known Issues

Form data truncated: Due to a bug in the form-processing software (FlexMail), lengthy form submissions are truncated. Avoid submitting more than a couple paragraphs of data via any given form.

Form-to-email headers: The email headers of messages sent by the form processing software (FlexMail) are not 100% compliant with SMTP RFC on date stamping. This has caused SPAM-filter issues for some diocesan offices, preventing messages from being delivered.

Form-to-email originating address: The over simplicity used by the form processing software (FlexMail) to identify who is sending messages has caused some people to be unable to receive messages, sometimes depending on who initiated the form processing on the web site. This issue can be avoided if the publishers of email forms whitelist the diocesan web server in their email filters. The server's IP address it 206.11.94.221.

Form-processing and required fields: If a TEXTAREA of a form is declared as a required field (within FlexMail), there is on bug. If the end-user type a return (creating a blank line) at the top of the TEXTAREA, that field will be considered empty and the form-processing software will reject the form as being incomplete. Again, this only applies IF that TEXTAREA is declared as required when you code the FlexMail file.

Localization: The ability to automatically display web pages in the end-user's preferred language has been disabled (to avoid a related bug). Web pages can still exist in multiple languages, but the server will not automatically determine the language of a person's computer.

PDF files: Some users have reported intermittent issues viewing select PDF files. This bug seems limited to web surfers with Microsoft Windows XP. It seems to be a slight incompatibility between the way some software saves PDF files and our web server software. Webmasters experiencing this bug can try using alternative software such as PDF Shrink to resave the PDF file. Alternatively, if the webmaster does not "fix" the PDF file, the end-user surfing the web site can download the PDF, then open it (rather than viewing it within their web browser).

FTP: The FTP software currently used on this server supports filenames of 30 or less characters. Longer filenames may not display correctly within the FTP software or may not be accessible via the web site. This affects only FTP. An alternative upload method, WebDAV, is not affected.

WebDAV versus SSI: It appears that SSI's (server side includes) do not work within WebDAV-accessible folders.

Vista versus SSI: Files containing SSI's (those with the .shtml extension) may have a couple extra characters appear at the top of the web page if they were created on a computer running Microsoft Windows Vista. It is assumed this is caused by some invisible data inserted by Windows Vista, that our current SSI processor translates into visible characters. This has only been tested on one machine, so it is possible that other factors are involved.

Mailing list server: The mailing list server used by the diocese is somewhat antique, though it is operational. Not all claimed features are functional. Additionally, it lacks SMTP authentication. This causes us to maintain a special SMTP server just for use by the mailing list server.

Admin-only: update system status