Server migration is complete as of 10:35 UTC today :D
If you have any problems or questions please post in #techteam on irc.uwcs.co.uk

TL;DR we’re moving away from codd on the 25th. If you have anything running please move it to nodd.uwcs.co.uk in the next two weeks. The domain uwcs.co.uk will be updated accordingly in just over two weeks. The new IRC server is up at irc.uwcs.co.uk

You may remember me writing at the end of last term about us migrating our hosting infrastructure. I said it would be done by the end of term, and you might have gathered by now that we didn’t manage to pull that off. Sorry about that.

After dealing with one of the target servers not wanting to be a server any more, we are now ready to migrate (I mean it this time!). After a brief outage on 25/01/2016, users will be directed to nodd (new-codd) instead of codd. Codd will remain accessible at codd.uwcs.co.uk until 08/02/2016 (two weeks) to allow you to deal with any running programs you may have (e.g. tmux, screen, and irssi). If you need to bind to ports, ports 7000-8000 are available for users to bind to. After the two week grace period, codd.uwcs.co.uk will point to nodd.

How can we be sure it will actually happen this time? I held off writing this until we had everything already running in parallel (and tested!). All we have to do now is push the button.

We will also be moving our IRC network, and from today (19/01/2016) all IRC requests will be routed to nodd. You might notice a brief disconnect, but things should be pretty smooth on this front. The main public channels will be created, but if you have any hidden channels you’ll have to recreate them yourself. BadgerBOT has upped sticks and awaits you when you join nodd. The irc server on codd will be unavailable after the two week grace period.

Want to get ahead of the game? Nodd is already up at nodd.uwcs.co.uk, so you can log in and start using it right away. All of your files are available, and you can double check that your website is being served correctly. You can also point your IRC client there and recreate any hidden channels you own.

You might have noticed we’ve had a bit of down time recently – sorry about that! We’re in the process of a complete overhaul of our hosting infrastructure, with a planned completion date of November the 27th. Unfortunately there will have to be a little bit more downtime, but we’ll do all we can to keep it to a minimum. Planned outages are as follows:

Tuesday 17th November: approx 1 hour, sometime between 1100 and 1700 UTC
(MySQL only)

Friday 27th November: approx 2 hours, sometime between 1100 and 1700 UTC
(MySQL and hosting)

After the 27th of November, all requests to uwcs.co.uk and irc.uwcs.co.uk will be routed through the new infrastructure. Any files you currently have will be kept in sync with the new servers, and the old server will remain on for two weeks after after this date to allow you to transition over.

Q: I have a website with you, what do I need to do?
A: Unless you’re storing files somewhere other than /home, everything will continue operating as normal :)

Q: What about my persistent IRC session?
A: All running programs (like IRSSI) will have to be moved before the end of term – sorry, but there’s no way around this :(

Q: How does this affect my specific setup?
A: Feel free to email me at academic-president@uwcs.co.uk and I’ll be happy to help

Once again, thanks for bearing with us! It’ll be worth it for the shiny new systems we’re installing…

Thank you everyone for coming along to the shell talk today! You can find the slides at https://goo.gl/m17ZXP

Welcome to Warwick!

This Friday (9th Oct) we will be having our first Friday Gaming of term, along with XING, our programming workshop, in the room next door. It’s held in the Department of Computer Science, which is next to Maths. The building requires card access, but for our first event we will station someone next to the door to open it for you, but in future (or if no one is there), you can always knock on the window and someone will let you in! It’s 8pm until 8am, you’re allowed to bring food and drink but no alcohol please!

We hold our weekly pub night every Monday, and for this term at least, it will be at Varsity (the pub near Westwood). We usually all grab a meal and talk about computery things for a couple of hours, and it’s always a lot of fun!

Our LAN parties are held twice a term, each from Friday until Sunday, with the exception of the last LAN of the year which is a monster five days in length!

For a list of our events, including gaming, programming, pub and LAN click here.

We finally have a step-by-step guide on how to join us on IRC! It can be found here:

https://uwcs.co.uk/cms/about/services/irc/setup/

We encourage all of our members to join our IRC network, as it’s a fun, interesting and sometimes very useful (coursework help etc)!

We had our AGM today! It was very long, so thanks to everybody who turned up and voted, and congratulations to our new exec:

Academic president: William Seymour (mcnutty)
Gaming president: Alistair Crook (phillammon)
Tech officer: Rayhaan Jaufeerally (rayhaan)
Secretary: Rhiannon Michelmore (rhiba)
Treasurer: Tom Hoare (MisterMarmite)
Social secretary: Martin Dalzell (robot527)
Publicity officer: Alice Fitzgerald (hermit)

Greetings CompSoc,

As you may have been aware, the 6th of June is world IPv6 day. IPv6 is a new version of the Internet Protocol (IP) specification that was designed to fix the exhaustion of the IPv4 address space. Unfortunately switching from an internet where the majority of service providers, corporations, and users have their equipment already setup to work with IPv4, to one where services can be accessed from both IPv4 and IPv6 networks is not a trivial problem to solve.

IPv6 day is intended to get more people to test out their IPv6 support, and as such the compsoc website is now also available from IPv6 networks at the following address: https://ipv6.uwcs.co.uk/

If you have any problems accessing this website or just want to know more about IPv6 feel free to come along to the programming workshops on Tuesdays or XING on Fridays and have a chat about the exciting future of the Internet Protocol.

The results of the AGM which took place today are:

Academic president: Christopher Leonard (veltas)
Gaming president: Maddy Young (metalgabu)
Tech officer: Rayhaan Jaufeerally (rayhaan)
Secretary: Tom Hoare (MisterMarmite)
Treasurer: Will Seymour (mcnutty)
Social secretary: Martin Dalzell (robot527)

Congratulations to all new exec!

We also decided to create a new marketing/publicity officer role. This role would involve creating posters and generally publicising the society better, and helping get the word out about all academic, gaming and social events. We will hold an election for this new role shortly, watch out for an email if you’re interested!

The 2014 Annual General Meeting of the Computing Society (UWCS) shall be held on the 5th of February at 3pm, in the Student Union HQ’s Central Meeting Area.

The AGM is the opportunity for members to vote on changes to the society’s constitution, and also the time for members to elect the new executives of the society.

Details about the event, as well as the election process, can be found on the event page.