[PW] Server Status Update

[John Franklin]

Well, it looks like the list is back. Between this outage and what  
happened last time, it seems reasonable to conclude that any time I  
mention one upcoming problem, another one pops up around the same  
time just to confuse everyone.

In this case, the list mail server (lists.project-wombat.org) was  
rebooted on July 7th. Unfortunately, the script which was supposed to  
start Mailman (the program which handles list mail distribution)  
failed, so that although the server was still accepting messages, no  
mail was sent out. Between the lack of errors of any kind and the  
general slow rate of the list on summer weekends, it took until  
Monday to be sure there was a problem. And then it took a while to  
figure out what was going on, and ask our host (whose representative  
is several timezones away) to do something about it.

Mailman is running again, and in theory the scripts have been updated  
and will now work in the event of any future reboots. (Although the  
next time I get a notification that the server has rebooted, I am  
going to send off a reminder immediately, just to be sure.)

This was entirely independent, by the way, of the transfer which is  
expected next week, about which I already sent notification. That  
will take place no earlier than the 17th.

Thank you for your patience.

-John Franklin