The Comms Room

Nathan C

4:01 PM

What's puzzling is that the VPN is still showing as live...

voretaq7

ohhh my Satan this question

0

Q: Passive ethernet tap

I'm having an hard time figuring out why can't I capture the packets flowing between two devices, in both directions, using a self made Ethernet tap, with copper cable, which looks just like this one: Both end devices (say, A and B) are connected to a switch. But since the sniffer (a regular l...

I don't know what to do with it, but I want to hurt the author in ways that probably violate all of the Geneva conventions simultaneously.

ewwhite

@ChrisS I mean, that type of request deserves some attention, right?

Chris S

@ewwhite Depends on how much I hate the client

voretaq7

@ewwhite Indeed it does. @ChrisS must decide exactly how much to overcharge the ~~idiot~~ client

@ewwhite rape 'em.

The insurance industry (even "healthcare exchanges") exist to siphon money out of the populace

the least they can do is provide you with a comfortable living.

ewwhite

Hehe.

voretaq7

4:14 PM

If they ever get around to complaining about the cost offer "consulting services" at twice your normal rate to improve the system.

@ewwhite that's all?

this state clearly doesn't know how to waste their taxpayers' money!

Chris S

I don't like the Castro part, but otherwise, this would make a good/scary movie: schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/04/…

Nathan C

Man, even with the firewall dropping based on RBLs AND our mail server dropping with RBLs and spamassassin we still get spam that comes through :(

voretaq7

@NathanC I get at least 50/day on my personal account

Chris S

Another good movie plot schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/04/…

voretaq7

without RBLs and SA it's well over 100

Chris S

4:18 PM

This movie plot won the contest: schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/04/…

Nathan C

I'm also using the "greeting delay" feature and yet we still get some

It basically delays the SMTP greeting for x seconds ...most spam scripts won't wait that long.

TheCleaner

@voretaq7 I kept looking at the guy's drawing and then back at the pic and then back to the drawing over and over. Now my head hurts.

Chris S

I only use Spamhaus's RBL, still get a dozen spam through, but almost all are sorted into "Junk" by SA.

voretaq7

@ChrisS I just have SA shit anything that scores 5+ into space

If your email looks that spammy I don't fucking want it.

Nathan C

heh, i have it set to tag at 3.5 and outright reject at 5

ewwhite

4:29 PM

VMware people... who can tell me what's wrong with this picture?

oops..

WesleyDavid

mew

ewwhite

Don't be like @JoelESalas and get all hard for KVM!

WesleyDavid

@ewwhite Grizzly, you corporate droid! =P

ewwhite

@WesleyDavid can YOU answer the question?

WesleyDavid

@ewwhite No. =( It just looks really, really expensive.

Can I discuss VMware's licensing pitfalls with you?

ewwhite

4:35 PM

@WesleyDavid tremendously.

@WesleyDavid sure.

WesleyDavid

@ewwhite Okay, first, VMware makes a fist and orders you to turn around...

ewwhite

@WesleyDavid you play by the rules too much!

WesleyDavid

Second, you can't use VMware in any way if there is going to be an external customer accessing the system, unless you're in the VSPP. Fie on thee, fake-FOSS licensing, fie on thee.

voretaq7

@WesleyDavid look, would you prefer that it be Oracle?

they don't even have the courtesy to make a fist.

WesleyDavid

@voretaq7 You know, I was just going to mention Oracle being not far off from this equation...

voretaq7

4:38 PM

or remove that spiky bracelet :(

jokerdino

@ewwhite would you like for the history to be purged too?

ewwhite

@jokerdino naw

:)

WesleyDavid

@jokerdino Ed likes to live dangerously.

jokerdino

ok purged. you are welcome

WesleyDavid

You should see when he posts photos of his Brazzers college days.

jokerdino

4:39 PM

Woah.

I didn't buy a premium account yet.

Adrian

@WesleyDavid Am I just being lazy, or is it a hell of a lot easier to require OpenID accounts instead of having people create yet another new damn account.

WesleyDavid

@Adrian Yeah it's a lot easier. I'm more and more using Google or Twitter to create accounts on places. Witness: Code School yesterday. I used my Google OpenID.

Everyone is lazy. Lower the barrier to entry by using it.

@Adrian You could do what most places seem to be doing now, like Fitocracy, and that's use all the big fancy social networks as login providers, but then way down in the corner have a teeny little link to allow people to make an independent account.

But that could be a later feature. Just allow Google logins until people squawk.

Pain is a great feature indicator.

2

Adrian

@WesleyDavid This is true. And frankly, and it has low ROI too.

WesleyDavid

@Adrian As Method Man said (almost 20 years ago!!) "Bring the pain!"

Wow, 20 years.

Adrian

@WesleyDavid Yeah, Lady and I have been remarking lately that the early 90s does NOT feel like 20 years ago.

WesleyDavid

4:47 PM

@Adrian I've got socks that are older than some of the PHP developers I deal with.

3

voretaq7

@Adrian we're old :(

WesleyDavid

@voretaq7 Patron saints of SysAdmins:

Adrian

@voretaq7 Tell me about it. And I'm not too far away from needing to figure out what I want to do next. By the time you're 40, quite a few places simply won't hire out in IT.

WesleyDavid

@Adrian By then you'll have a network of self sustaining Rubythings and the whippersnappers will be yelping to work for you.

Adrian

@WesleyDavid One hopes.

MDMarra

5:00 PM

@ewwhite Nope

Any problems with it today that you know about?

ewwhite

@MDMarra Naw.

MDMarra

ok

I see exactly when the problem started, 2/2012

But the only log that goes back that far and has those events in it isn't useful for root cause analysis

So, I just kinda rubbed my hands together and did some Mr Miyagi AD magic to it.

ewwhite

@MDMarra 2/2012

MDMarra

yeah, feb of last year

Maybe that's not when DHCP started bombing, but that's just a symptom of a larger problem that's been going on since then

Adrian

@MDMarra I was under the impression that in those large AD environments that you guys would mostly put a cap in problem machines, spool up a new one from SCCM, and that you mostly worried about wider network-wide issues.

Travis

5:08 PM

@Adrian Easier that way

Adrian

@Travis And I don't think I've ever been in a situation where I haven't had more things to do than time to do it in where sitting down to really figure out why something is broken was a luxury I could afford.

Travis

@Adrian Workstation wise was a definite. Servers I always tend to be a little more curious as to why

For some reason I don't think this is correct... *09:30:24.117 UTC Mon Aug 30 1993

Adrian

@Travis True. And these are probably some of the differences between a good IT shop and a crap one.

Travis

Yep

@Adrian Although sometimes it is a benefit to determine why a workstation crapped out in the case of windows updates or something of the like, but fine line I'd say

Adrian

@Travis Makes sense. Starting to look like I'm going to have to learn some of that fancy-pants Windows stuff you guys do. Not too many slots for pure-Linux people that have limited Dev experience these days.

MDMarra

5:16 PM

@Adrian This is in one of Ed's produce companies

On one of the two DCs that has third party software installed on it

And some of the issues that I found weren't machine specific. If the problem still keeps popping up, my next recommendation is to demote, migrate shit to a member server that isn't necessary, spin up a new template, and make it a replacement DC

They can't afford cool still like SCCM and even if they could, they wouldn't know what the hell to do with it

ewwhite

@MDMarra Yeah, the security system software.

MDMarra

Looked like time clock stuff too

ewwhite

@MDMarra sorry, accounting

Travis

@ewwhite When did you start working for my company :)

MDMarra

apology accepted

Iain

5:22 PM

@voretaq7 burn it - it's TL - a shitty question that just adds to the river of crap that is the front page of SF

ewwhite

@MDMarra yeah, so what?!?

Travis

Do you guys use your own internal NTP or external?

MDMarra

@Travis I see a lot of "sync core switches to external, sync PDC emulator from network core. All network devices sync from core, all computers sync from the domain hierarchy"

ewwhite

@Travis GPS and PTP... in my past...

now, we sync server time manually using a Casio Calculator watch.

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