Debian GNU/Linux has just released a major version upgrade. All customer servers and workstations will eventually need upgrading.

Currently, testing is being performed on contingencies encountered during the upgrade process which may adversely effect a smooth upgrade on customer systems.

After testing is complete, customers will be contacted to determine their plans or needs, and subsequent upgrades to their systems will be scheduled if desired.

We are very excited about this release. It's been a long time coming.

Tomorrow morning beginning around 0100 PST people may experience brief and intermittent service outages not lasting for more than one hour, as servers are upgraded with security patches.

Customers running Debian systems will be contacted individually to schedule downtime for system reboots after applying upgrade.

There will be brief outages tomorrow morning, beginning at 01:00 PST, as servers are upgraded with new kernels.

Customer servers will also be upgraded over the next few days. Scheduling will be handled on an individual basis.

Servers were down for a good part of the evening after midnight last night until noon this morning as a result of complications encountered with data on the logical volumes of the primary raid arrays during upgrade.

The arrays have been successfully rebuilt without any data loss. I'm sorry for the terribly long downtime.

Customers may notice brief, intermittent outages of various services tonight, 24-October-2008, beginning at 23:00 PST as we upgrade servers to the newest Debian release.

The IP addresses of tertiary DNS and backup mail routing servers will be changing. These changes must be reflected in customer domain registrations and server definitions to ensure that these backup services remain in effect for customers.

Where Orbis Lumen provides direct IT support, these changes will be made for you without any intervention on your organization's part.

Customers will be contacted with details of the changes needed, specific to their situation.

Orb system services will experience brief interruptions tonight as servers are upgraded with new kernels.

Also, customer servers managed by Orbis Lumen will also be updated, experiencing similar brief outages, unless otherwise coordinated.

The GNU project, the origin of the Free Software movement, has turned 25 years old today. For a brief insight into the history and ramifications of this movement, check out http://orbum.net/mark/2008/09/18/freedom-is-free/

We all owe a great deal to these people.

Customer systems have been upgraded with the newest version within Debian volatile of ClamAV.