RWTH E-Mail-Routing

To resolve the current issues, maintenance work will be performed today between 4:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. During this time, there will be a service interruption affecting most of the services at RWTH for approximately 10 minutes. Please take this last-minute announcement into account when planning your work.

The work has been completed, and the issue has been successfully resolved.

Even though most of the services are up and running again, the root cause of the problem has not been resolved. We are continuing to work behind the scenes to fix the issue. However, this also means that disruptions may still occur.

The work has been completed, and the issue has been successfully resolved.

Login via RWTH Single Sign-On (SSO) is currently disrupted. As a result, it is not possible to log in to any connected services.

There is currently a widespread disruption affecting, among other things, the SSO, though not limited to it. The root cause analysis is still underway.

Most of the services are currently up and running again. The analysis is ongoing. We cannot rule out the possibility of further outages.

Most of the services are up and running again. Please note, however, that the underlying issue has not yet been resolved, and disruptions may therefore continue to occur.

Explanation Following the Outage:
On June 22, 2026, starting at 9:00 a.m., there was a widespread outage affecting our services, which primarily impacted the RWTH Single Sign-On but was not limited to it. By around 12:00 p.m., the situation had largely stabilized, allowing users to log in via RWTH Single Sign-On again; however, other issues (e.g., with the IT Center ticket tool and RWTHmoodle) persisted. On the same day, between 4:30 p.m. and 5:00 p.m., the data center firewall was rebooted, which resolved the remaining issues. The disruption was caused by problems with the data center core switch. To ensure a lasting improvement in the situation, maintenance on the affected system was successfully carried out on June 30, 2026.

There may currently be issues logging in via RWTH Single Sign-On (SSO).
This is because a new certificate has been active in the metadata since 9:30 a.m. today.
The relevant department has been notified and is working with the system operators to resolve the issue.

Delays in receiving and sending emails may currently occur.

Zu diesem Zeitpunkt wird das zentraleMailgateway der RWTH Aachen einer turnusmässigen Wartung unterzogen.
Es ist von keinem Ausfall des der Mailfunktionalität auszugehen.

Im angegebenen Zeitfenster werden die beiden redundanten Datacenter Core-Router gegen leistungsfähigere Router ersetzt. Da der Austausch wechselseitig erfolgen kann, ist dieser unterbrechungsfrei geplant.

A new version of the web application for managing RWTH E-Mail, RWTH E-Mail Routing, and Adam services will be available. During this time, account management will be limited.

The system is undergoing routine maintenance and will have limited availability during this time.

This means that administrative tasks related to email addresses/distribution lists cannot be performed.

Diese Wartung führt dazu das ggf. der Versand und der Empfang von Mails engeschränkt ist. Aufgrund des des Zwischenspeicherung der Mails auf Serverebene führt das zu einer Verzögerung bei der Mailannahme bzw. beim Mailversand.

Due to the replacement of central switches in the data center at the Seffenter Weg and Wendlingweg locations, there may be brief outages of the services operated in the data center between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m., or 10 p.m. at the latest.

As a result, authentication for Wi-Fi and VPN will also be temporarily unavailable, meaning that logging into Wi-Fi (eduroam, RWTH institutes, RWTH devices) and all VPN areas may be temporarily disrupted.

The maintenance will also affect various IT Center services, which may also experience brief outages. This message has been extended to the affected services.

Die Wartung wurde erfolgreich beendet.

im genannten Zeitraum kam es vereinzelt zu einer Verzögerung oder Nichtannahme der von Ihnen versendeten Mail.

Internally, we are switching from a SOAP interface for connecting the Identity Management System to a REST interface. Those who previously used the API to integrate MailADM into certain processes must also migrate their applications to this new interface.

As part of this migration, MailADM has been completely redesigned. It is now implemented as a Single Page Application (SPA). Numerous user suggestions have been incorporated into the new version. For details:

During the deployment of the new application, managing email accounts and distribution lists will be limited. No interruption to email service is expected.

die Wartung muss verlängert werden

Die Wartung verlängert sich.

Die Wartung verlängert sich

Der Zugriff auf das Frontend und die Verwaltung von Mailaddressen und Accounts ist derzeit nicht möglich.

ADAM already functioning again.

Due to the ongoing threat of phishing emails reaching RWTH Aachen University, it has been decided to configure the DMARC policy from p=none to p=reject.

This means that emails sent from external sources that imitate the RWTH mail domain (e.g., @rwth-aachen.de) will be rejected by the RWTH mail servers. Exceptions to this rule are mail domains for which corresponding processes have been agreed upon with the IT Center in the past.
If such processes are active in your institution, please contact us.

Please ensure that emails are preferably sent via authenticated SMTP via mail.rwth-aachen.de. If this is not possible for technical reasons, please use smarthost-tls.rwth-aachen.de or smarthost.rwth-aachen.de to send emails:

https://help.itc.rwth-aachen.de/en/service/uvjom6mlb9yw/faq/#48522e5ea37f4bd981373b9aee099fbe

Zu diesem Zeitpunkt wird das zentraleMailgateway der RWTH Aachen einer turnusmässigen Wartung unterzogen.
Es ist von keinem Ausfall des der Mailfunktionalität auszugehen.

Es ist von keinem Ausfall des Maildienstes auszugehen.

Es gab technische Probleme bei dieser Wartung. Die Funktionalität des Mailgateways ist nach derzeitiger Analyse nicht eingeschränkt.

Problem wurde gefixt

Maintenance is being performed on the databases that support the web applications for the RWTH-E-Mail and RWTH-E-Mail-Routing services. During this time, it will not be possible to make changes to existing email accounts (e.g., quota changes or alias address adjustments, etc.) or to create new coupons for future email addresses. Regarding the "RWTH-E-Mail Routing" service, no changes can be made to the download URLs for the recipient verification file.

Wartung wurde erfolgreich beendet

There are currently disruptions to RWTH Single Sign-On. After entering your login details, the screen loads and then an Internal Server Error appears. This affects all services that use the RWTH Single Sign-On login.
The specialist department has been informed and is working to resolve the issue.

The problem has been fixed.

During this period, the routing of the previous XWiN routers (Nexus 7700) will be switched to the new XWiN routers (Catalyst 9600). These routers are essential for RWTH's network connection. This changeover also requires the migration of the DFN connection, which is switched redundantly to Frankfurt and Hannover, and the RWTH firewall to the new systems.
There will be complete or partial outages of the external connection during the maintenance window. All RWTH services (e.g. VPN, email, RWTHonline, RWTHmoodle) will not be available during this period. The accessibility of services within the RWTH network will be temporarily unavailable due to limited DNS functionality.

Der Uplink nach Frankfurt wurde erfolgreich auf das neue System geschwenkt.

Umbau des Uplinks nach Hannover beginnt.

Uplink nach Hannover auf das neue System umgezogen.

BGP v4/v6 nach Frankfurt und Hannover sind nun über die neue Routern funktional.

Es stehen noch ein paar kleinere Nacharbeiten an.

Wartung ist abgeschlossen. Der Datenverkehr läuft nun vollständig über die neuen Router!

Problematik mit der Anbindung zur Physik identifiziert, Lösung erfolgt morgen früh.

Nach unserer Systemwartung und der damit verbundenen Aktualisierung des AsyncOS unseres zentralen Mailgateways kam es, basierend auf einer fehlerhaften DKIM Analyse, zu einer gehäuften Ablehnung von eingehenden E-Mails. Hiervon waren insbesondere absendende Maildomänen betroffen, die bei der Strato Gmbh gehostet sind. Diesen Umstand und die damit verbundenen Unannehmlichkeiten bitten wir zu entschuldigen.
Weiterführende Informationen: https:
bst.cloudapps.cisco.com/bugsearch/bug/CSCwn93374

Es findet eine Wartung des zentralen Mailgateways statt. Aufgrund der implementierten Redundanz wird es zu keinem Ausfall der E-Mailerreichbarkeit kommen.

Aufgrund einer geänderten Policy bei Yahoo,AOL etc. bei der aktuell ein DMARC Record für absende Maildomänen vorhanden sein muss wenn diese Mails von einem "Bulk sender" versendet werden wird für die Maildomänen der RWTH Aachen der DMARC Record auf die Methode "p=none" gesetzt. Hiermit verbunden ist nur ein Reporting d.h. eine DMARC Verletzung führt nicht zu einer Ablehnung der Mail durch den empfangenden Mailserver. Es ist von keinen Auswirkungen auf Nutzende und deren Nutzungsszenarien auszugehen.

At the moment, single sign-on and multi-factor authentication are sporadically disrupted. We are already working on a solution and ask for your patience.

Das zentrale Mailgateway wird einer turnusmäßigen Wartung unterzogen.
Von einem Ausfall des Mailroutings ist nicht auszugehen.

Das zentrale Mailgateway wird einer turnusmäßigen Wartung unterzogen.
Von einem Ausfall des Mailroutings ist nicht auszugehen.

Due to DNS disruption, the name servers of various providers are currently not returning an IP address for hosts under *.rwth-aachen.de.
As a workaround, you can store alternative DNS servers in your connection settings, e.g. the Level3-Nameserver (4.2.2.2 and 4.2.2.1) or Comodo (8.26.56.26 und 8.20.247.20). It may also be possible to reach the RWTH VPN server, in which case please use VPN.

Instructions for configuring an alternative DNS server under Windows can be found via the following links:
https:
www.ionos.de/digitalguide/server/konfiguration/windows-11-dns-aendern/
https:
www.netzwelt.de/galerie/25894-dns-einstellungen-windows-10-11-aendern.html
You can also use VPN as an alternative. If you cannot reach the VPN server, you can adjust the host file under Windows according to the following instructions. This will allow you to reach the server vpn.rwth-aachen.de. To do this, the following entry must be added:
134.130.5.231 vpn.rwth-aachen.de
https:
www.windows-faq.de/2022/10/04/windows-11-hosts-datei-bearbeiten/

The hosts of RWTH Aachen University can now be reached again from outside the RWTH network.

Individual users may have experienced problems even after the fault was rectified on 25 August at 9 pm. On 26.8. at 9 a.m. all follow-up work was completed, so there should be no further problems.

RWTH-E-Mail and RWTH-E-Mail-Routing: Announcement of the Activation of DKIM With reference to our series of articles [1] on email security , we will activate the DKIM protocol for all hosted and routed mail domains at RWTH Aachen University on August 1, 2024. The DKIM (Domain Keys) identification protocol is designed to ensure that the content of an email cannot be changed in transit, e.g. by a compromised mail server The activation of DKIM is a further security measure in the worldwide e-mail traffic of RWTH Aachen University. For more information, please refer to the series of e-mail security articles on the IT Center blog and our status reporting portal.
[1] https:
blog.rwth-aachen.de/itc/en?s=E-Mail-Sicherheit