More About Web Sites During Server Problems

I stated in an earlier post today that "some web sites were partially down". I've had some questions about what that means, precisely.

All web sites hosted on ms.mcmaster.ca were down from 4:30 to 6:15 yesterday evening.

From 6:15 to 9:00 pm, many pages on the main math web site (the official-looking blue pages) were failing; other sites (e.g. iidda.mcmaster.ca, mathmail.mcmaster.ca) were OK, as were personal and course pages on www.math.mcmaster.ca.

From 9:00 pm yesterday to 9:45 am today, all www.math.mcmaster.ca pages were working from on campus and from VPN connections, but not from off campus. As of 9:50 am today, things were back to normal.