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University of Twente NOC Destroyed
JanJoost writes "Around 08.00 CET today the University of Twente Network Operations Center, which amongst other things hosts a SURFnet PoP as well as security.debian.org and non-us.debian.org, caught fire.
The UT, which hosted the HAL in august last year is completely unreachable and is not likely to come back up any time soon. The fire department has given up every hope on protecting the server area and is now trying to protect the surrounding buildings.
More information can be found at the Telegraaf,
Planet Internet and Twentsche Courant.
Pictures can be found here and here.
It's a shame to see a great infrastructure go down in flames like this."
From debian-devel, here's a slightly (only slightly) more informative blurb
More images can be found on http://www.bsdfreaks.nl/files/brand.htm
.sig: No such file or directory
"which amongst other things hosts a SURFnet PoP as well as security.debian.org and non-us.debian.org "
security.debian.org and non-us.debian.org are GONE (well, burning, hopefully data can be recovered). Yes there's mirrors, but it still sucks.
Free Mac Mini
In case one might be interested, Essent mirrored security.debian.org.
You can use debian.essentkabel.com to download the latest security updates (in case you haven't already). Please note this is NOT an official mirror.
Daxy's Networking Blog
Also, here's what seems to be the only close up I could find of the fire. pics
No man is an island, But if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie them together, they make a pretty good raft.
Effective as it was, Halon was also a major ozone-hole cause, so it has been outlawed in most countries by now.
Here's an update from SARA (that's where I work), the network operator for SURFnet. SURFnet is very busy ordering new equipment and fixing the 2 x 10 Gbit/s lamda's to Enschede. We hope to restore connectivity a.s.a.p. Greetings, Marco
No, no and no.
The university doesn't insure itself agains this kind of disaster because they are able to set aside enough money to cover the cost themselves and don't have to pay the insurer's profit.
Now how they are going to deal with this and their financial troubles (they're almost broke) is another issue...
The Dutch LFS FTP mirror was also hosted at the University of Twente, which means it's also down. The Dutch HTTP mirror should work properly, since it's outside utwente.nl space.
Last news is that HP (Who supplied most of the UT backbone equipment) is on its way with emergency equipment to have things up and running somewhere tomorrow.
The fire did not start in the server rooms. What happened was that a fire started in one of the lecture rooms (and a smallish one at that, number A108) that just happened to be in the same wing of the TWRC building that also housed the server rooms (yes, multiple). It then proceeded to take out two entire wings and threaten other buildings nearby as well as the library.
Now, I would *love* to see a halon system capable of stopping that...
Owh, and the fire seems to be under control by now, as evidenced on http://webcam.traserv.com/
(which you can contrast to http://www-infstud.sci.kun.nl/~arthurvl/ispy.jpg (taken at about 09:40 CET this morning)).
Actually, Debian security updates are usually also added to the proposed-updates section, which means that they are available on nearly all Debian mirrors worldwide.
Something like /etc/apt/sources.list should work well.
deb ftp://ftp.XX.debian.org/pub/debian/ proposed-updates main contrib non-free
deb ftp://ftp.XX.debian.org/pub/debian-non-US/ proposed-updates/non-US main contrib non-free
(replace XX with your ISO country code) in your
You can find mirrors on Debian's website.
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!
Actually FM-200 and Inergen are the current replacements for Halon. Non Ozone-depleting and won't kill you if you're trapped in a NOC. Just lowers the avaliable O2 in the air. You'll get out of breath easily, but as long as you stay calm you won't have to worry.
Quote from debian-devel-announce
At around 8 this morning (local time) a fire started in the computing facilities of Twente University. This affects Debian, since one of our servers (satie) is hosted there. At this moment it seems very likely that the machine can not be recovered from the fire.
The following services are currently down as a result of this:
security.debian.org
non-us.debian.org
nm.debian.org
qa.debian.org
We are working to restoring these services on another machine and hope to have things in mostly working order by tomorrow. Security advisories are still available at http://www.debian.org/security/
Wichert.
Halon will kill you just as dead, just as quickly, as CO2.
Both gasses extinguish fire by excluding oxygen... which isn't good for people either.
The difference is that one cannot comfortably breath CO2, an involuntary physiological reaction makes it impossible. (next time you open a bottle of Coke, try sniffing the little cloud of CO2 that forms in the top of the bottle)
Halon, otoh, is perfectly comofortable to breathe in and out, but will provide no oxygen. This is similar to breathing helium (recommended as the nicest way to commit suicide, after N20) in that one would be quite comfortable right up until one passed out from hypoxia. Death follows soon after.
Also, i've read in boating magazines that undersized Halon systems used in engine compartments can be dangerous. Apparently, if the diesel engine is running when the system fires and there isn't enough Halon to kill the engine, the burned Halon/air/diesel mixture produces some really nasty toxic gasses.
Anyhow.. enough rambling!
fact is that the UT is responsible for 30% of the daily internet-traffic in the Netherlands :)
The advantage of Halon is that you can breathe quite comfortably in an atmosphere that will not sustain fire. CO2 works just about as effectively but will not sustain life.
You've obviously never been in a Halon dump. Either that or you consider burning in your lungs to be "quite comfortable". Not to mention that if you're standing under one of the discharge nozzles at a dump you can get a nasty case of frostbite.
I've personally been through two 1211 dumps and had to enter a computer room and drag staff out after an FM200 dump. It takes about two days to completely stop coughing.
- If we aren't supposed to eat animals, then why are they made out of meat? - Steven Wright
Those are Cisco syslog messages. No linux easter eggs.
Halon (or at least most of the Halons used for fire suppression; not sure about all of them) is non-toxic, though it'll get you a bit high, like nitrous oxide or most solvents, so being stuck in the stuff won't injure you quickly (except from flying objects that were blown around by the gas pressure.) However, it's no substitute for oxygen, and you'll probably be wanting some oxygen real soon now. If you can remember not to breathe in the stuff, try not to breathe deeply, because there's more oxygen left in your lungs than the stuff you'll be breathing in, and unfortunately, while your body can generally figure out not to breathe in water or hot smoke, it's not as good at realizing that near-room-temperature inert gases aren't very useful. Mostly, don't worry about it - find a safe door to run for and run for it, and do some deep breathing once you're outside, and try to close the door behind you.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks