This website was created as part of Berkeley Lab's emergency response plan for local and regional disasters. In the event of any disruption of services, this site will provide a means for Lab employees to communicate with each other and stay informed on the status of lab operations. Internet requests for www.lbl.gov will automatically redirect to this site if an emergency plan has been put into effect. The site can also be used by customers and lab employees who are having difficulty connecting to lab services to verify that no disruption has taken place and all services are available. The Emergency Status Information Line is: 1-800-445-5830

Current Status

Feb 27 2014 4pm.  We experienced a power issue starting at 3:48pm which impacted multiple services including login.lbl.gov (Ldap, Shibboleth), www2, many redirects, OTP, and many others.  As of 4.48PM, most services are back in operation.  Some systems are still being brought back up.


Besides that, we think things are OK.  If you don't, try emailing help@lbl.gov

Scheduled Events

No major scheduled events at this time.


Previous Events

Feb 2, Scheduled outage for www.lbl.gov, today.lbl.gov, newscenter.lbl.gov and other hosted wordpress sites.   More: https://commons.lbl.gov/display/itdivision/2015/01/26/WWW+Today+Newscenter+and+Wordpress+Hosted+Sites+Scheduled+Outage+Feb+2++2015+8PM  Offline 8pm to 9:05PM.   Normal return to service.  


Besides that, 


**** DECEMBER 26, 2014: MAJOR IT OUTAGE COMPLETE *** All services have been restored.

 We Are Est Time    Status Actual Time Action and Notes

 8:00AMComplete 8:00AM Begin Downtime for LDAP/IDM and Mail Handling (End User Impact:  No more authentications, no more inbound or outbound email - see below)*

 9:45AM    Complete  9:47AM    Begin Network Downtime 

 3:00PMComplete    11:23AM Network Restoration
 HERE 3:30PMComplete 1:30PM Service Restoration (Email, IDM, etc - see updates below for specifics)

Last update: 1:30PM

The outage is complete, all  services have been restored.

Outage Overview:

To support testing of recently repaired emergency power off (EPO) equipment, a full network outage is scheduled on December 26 from 8:00AM-3:30PM.  We expect some services to be restored before 3:30PM.   All Laboratory network connectivity, most IT services, and some telephone services will be unavailable.

*Impacted Services: Numerous, representative major services include:

  1. All Laboratory Network Connectivity (except nersc.gov and es.net), but including JGI.  Access to and from LBL to the internet and between subnets will be unavailable.  

  2. All Laboratory Websites excluding those hosted outside LBL.  Since there will be no network connectivity to LBL, all websites hosted at LBL will be unavailable.  However, www.lbl.gov, today.lbl.gov, and newscenter.lbl.gov will be available as they are hosted outside the Laboratory.

  3. All remote access to LBL.  Again, since there will no network connectivity, remote access will not be possible.

  4. Google Services including Email (partial): During the outage, incoming and outgoing email will be queued and delivered when connectivity is restored.  Users with active authenticated sessions to Google services including gmail will be able to use these services during the outage, but new authentications to Google will not be available.   Access to email via IMAP will also be available, but again, outgoing and incoming email will not be delivered until after the outage.

  5. All Authentication:  No authentications using LDAP or login.lbl.gov (Shibboleth) will be possible during the outage.

  6. All business systems will be unavailable, as there will be no network connectivity.

  7. All Voicemail

  8. Phone service in buildings 46, 71 and 76

Selected Services Anticipated to be Available:

  • www.lbl.gov, today.lbl.gov, newscenter.lbl.gov, status.lbl.gov

  • Google Sites that do not require authentication

  • Some partial google services (see #4 above)

  • Nersc.gov, es.net

From the Archives:  Why is Gmail impacted by an LBNL Network Outage?

There are two ways Gmail is impacted during this outage. The first is the indirect impact due to Gmail's dependency on LBL LDAP for authentication. Since Google's servers will not be able to communicate with LBL's servers, users will be unable to authenticate to Gmail. If you are already connected to Gmail during the outage, you will not be disconnected. However, you will not receive new email nor will new emails you create be delivered due to the second impact. Although Lab email is delivered to Gmail and you check it at Gmail, the email is  routed through (passes through) Lab email routing systems, for additional security filtering and list processing before being sent to Gmail.  In summary, you may be able to remain logged in and read your gmail during the outage, but new mail you receive and send will not be delivered to you until the outage is over.   


Sunday August 24

Following this morning's 6.0 Napa earthquake, Berkeley Lab staff are conducting a coordinated damage assessment of the Lab site. 

At this time there have been no reports of major damage to the facility. A more comprehensive inspection of individual laboratories and building interiors is now under way. At this point, there are no additional access restrictions. 

We fully expect Monday will be a normal workday.


July 11, 2PM:  We're making changes to www.lbl.gov, today.lbl.gov, and newscenter.lbl.gov - you'll see this page until the changes are complete.


Scheduled downtime for www and several other applications until 9pm on May 16th.

Mar 14  Minor Scheduled Maintenance 6-9pm, www.lbl.gov and selected additional systems.

Jan 17 Major outage of IT Systems scheduled for Friday Jan 17th 6pm-10pm  More    Most services restored by 8.30PM

Dec 30, at 12:15PM there was  a problem during a scheduled electrical maintenance activity.  Connectivity was restored at 4:05PM. 

Dec 13, 6pm - Major outage of IT provided services.   information>>>

Nov 6 2013:  The power distribution hardware described in the incident this morning failed again around 12:30PM today, impacting www, mail delivery, commons, and many other services.  It was resolved around 12:48.

Nov 6, 2013: We experienced an outage of www, commons, and email delivery due to the failure of a piece of power distribution hardware in the datacenter.  Services have been restored. 

April 2, 2012: LBNL experienced technical problem with the main Lab web server (www.lbl.gov) from 6:30pm to 7:00pm.

July 26, 2012: We conducted a test of our website disaster recovery procedure from 5:00pm to 5:15pm Thursday, July 26, 2012. During the test, users attempting to access www.lbl.gov were redirected to this site.

July 5, 2012: We conducted a test of our website disaster recovery procedure from 7:00pm to 7:15pm Thursday, July 5, 2012. During the test, users attempting to access www.lbl.gov were redirected to this site.

June 8, 2012: Due to an emergency outage, Berkeley Lab experienced a loss of Internet connectivity. Email, voicemail, and other IT services were impacted.

Dec 2-3 2011 Outage is Complete.  All systems are operational.  


For Google Apps for Berkeley Lab Status Information Click Here.
 Note that this link shows status information for all Google Apps services, not just those provided to LBL, so an issue may display there that doesn't impact us.

Recent Networking Events Are Recorded Here: