WebMail and VMS keep USU specialists at work
Utah State University’s WebMail was down all of Tuesday and will likely be down again Wednesday.
Kevin Graddy, a Help Desk consultant, said the problem lies in the university’s Virtual Memory System (VMS), an operating system that controls all of USU’s information. WebMail is the proxy server that allows students to read copies of their e-mails, which are stored on the VMS. Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) is the mechanism that copies the e-mail
messages.
For a reason currently unknown to Network and Computing Services, IMAP is only allowing a certain number of connections to WebMail. The number of student requests to access WebMail far exceeds the number of connections allowed by IMAP, Graddy said.
“It’s a pretty serious problem,” he said.
Network and Computing Services has been working around the clock to solve the problem, Graddy said. USU has had similar problems in the past, but nothing of this severity.
If WebMail is still down Wednesday, students should be patient and use an alternate method of checking e-mail. Those who are familiar with Telnet, a remote, text-based login utility, may use it to check their accounts.
–amarie@cc.usu.edu