Reboots of test-boxes.

Dear test-box hosts,

Over the past months, we have seen an increase of cases where one of the
"older" testboxes (identifiers tt01...tt27 and tt47) ended up in an
undefined state with no possibility to access the box from the NCC.


>>> If your test-box has an identifier from tt28 to tt46, you can 
>>> ignore the remainder of this message.


As far as we can see today, these problems are caused by a combination of
two factors:

1. A lack of memory and swap-space on the machine.

2. A small instability in the operating system.

In coming weeks, we will therefore increase the internal memory of the
test-boxes to 128 Mb.  Memory chips have been ordered and will be
distributed to your site in the next weeks, together with instructions on
how to install them.  This is typically a 15 minute job for somebody
slightly familiar with PC hardware.

We will also upgrade the operating system on the test-boxes.  We are
currently in the process of testing the new software distribution.  Since
we want to be 200% sure that the new kernel behaves as it should, testing
will take a bit of time.  Upgrading the O/S will require that you swap the
disks of the machines at least once. Again, instructions how and when to
do this, will follow by email as soon as we are ready.

As you can see, we are working on solving these problems, but in the
meantime, please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused by our
requests for occasional reboots.  If you have any questions left, please
do not hesitate to contact me.

Kind regards,

Henk Uijterwaal

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Henk Uijterwaal                    Email: henk.uijterwaal at ripe.net
RIPE Network Coordination Centre     WWW: http://www.ripe.net/home/henk
Singel 258                         Phone: +31.20.535-4414,  Fax -4445
1016 AB Amsterdam                   Home: +31.20.4195305
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