The Comms Room

12:56 AM

I know what he's doing. My only question is WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU USING UBUNTU, YOU DUMBASS?

... I think I need a vacation.

1:22 AM

This goes to the: "why use ubuntu for important shit?" question

or anything that deals with real hardware

@MichaelHampton let's vacation

2:47 AM

necn.com/news/new-england/…

"It was not as bad as last year..."

This is a little college town that you can almost see from one end to the other.

And one of the second order effects is, I get called...

the police seems to try to keep a band of drunk students organized...

you're a sysadmin around that?

@ThoriumBR The guy who put the town's police scanner frequencies on the internet happens to be one of my clients. It got so busy the server died a horrible death...

So I'm cowboy-tuning it...

that's not a nice way to die...

2:56 AM

Yeah, I get nervous when Linux logs that it's sending SYN cookies.

overlogging? looks like a few of our db2 servers. 1tb of data, 2tb of logs...

Naw, logging is hardly hitting the disks even with debugging on. Icecast isn't that verbose.

It was on my list of things to puppetize... I would have caught the configuration problem during that if I'd gotten around to it before now. Oh well.

5:40 AM

G'day

@MichaelHampton ciul you clean up Peter's ravings on meta.serverfault.com/questions/6597/… please? I'm sure he'll wake up with a bad enough hangover as it is.

6:48 AM

github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/…

That variable naming

7:08 AM

@MichaelHampton I use ubuntu... both on desktop and on (production) servers

10:35 AM

@Nick don't!

@ewwhite I already am :p

11:01 AM

STOP IT!

@MichaelHampton Is this true?

@ewwhite I'm using netcat here because it seems like the simplest solution to my problem (transferring a file from a Docker instance to the host). Or at least it would be if it worked. — runeks 1 min ago

@ewwhite but.. but... its been working out great so far

faker

11:14 AM

@Nick heathen!

Journeyman Geek

Lol

My home server is still on Ubuntu since I can't get rutorrent working on fedora yet

I'm happy on either myself

@JourneymanGeek use transmission

11:29 AM

Oh, you guys actually use Linux?

like.. for fun?

@ewwhite there is nota single windows or mac machine in my house

except my brothers virus riddled desktop

heh

actually... even my router runs linux

faker

I don't run Linux at home. Sometimes maybe a Vagrant instance on my Mac but that's it

12:16 PM

@ewwhite No, he's an idiot

Q: Possibility of WAN Optimization for SSH traffic

@MichaelHampton awww

@MichaelHampton Your opinion on this?

1

While I do understand that SSH by itself is a very low bandwidth utilizing protocol, it is sometimes choking up bandwidth during peak hours in our office environment. I want to know if at all it is possible to reduce/optimize SSH (rsync) traffic over WAN ? I realized that riverbed cannot do it. ...

ssh rsync optimization wan riverbed

rabbit-hole

You can't compress everything!

@MichaelHampton specifically...

@deppfx This is why more detail is always better... you have lots (hundreds?) of end-users each (manually) triggering rsyncs of compiled code bidirectionally across your WAN link to the point where it's negatively impacting communications? Is there a network engineer in the house? Is this more of a "people problem" or policy issue than something that needs a technology solution? What type of firm is this? Has this been a problem for a long time? — ewwhite 59 mins ago

@MichaelHampton tar czf entropy.tar.gz /dev/random

Ah, the soup thickens...

12:22 PM

It's bloody windy out there today, I almost got blown off the path on the side of the Dee.

@MichaelHampton have you ever needed a WAN accelerator?

@Iain ride faster!

@ewwhite No, I've never needed a WAN accelerator.

@ewwhite 70 miles average 17mph in 25mph cross winds gusting to 40mph is quick enough

Oh no... there's a big produce industry convention going on now...

the support calls are rolling in...

Good morning ed. I am at the PMA convention in Anaheim an I try to login to PriPro on Remote Desktop connection for Mac. As always (years) the prompt says server name on certif incorrect do you want to connect I say yes. As always I see the word welcome, then it change I a red x and says access denied. Can you help and correct. Thanks PAUL

@Iain What wheels are you rolling on now?

@ewwhite These are Planet X Model B that I use for the winter

my DA have been put away till next spring

12:29 PM

all aluminium?

;)

no carbon?

@ewwhite yep

@Iain you should upgrade!

world of difference.

you'll love cycling even more

Client: I’m sure you know that Mark (IT Manager) is on vacation. Scary things sometimes happen when he is gone. I’m crossing my legs right now. I logged on this morning and the Produce Pro system is running REALLY slow. I don’t know if this is your area. Perhaps background jobs are running? Maybe this will pass, it sometimes does. HALP!

Sunday mornings are precious

windows networking windows-server-2008

1:47 PM

0

Q: WAN speed vs internet

Why does it happen that if I open a webpage hosted by a server , which is a part of WAN (Access Network) , it takes longer time to open than a webpage hosted on internet. Technically , a webpage over internet has to cross more number of routers before reaching the destination. Is it only because...

Journeyman Geek

0_0

@ewwhite wat

4:00 PM

googles something... first link is a wikihow (with pictures) link, not sure if what I searched for is stupid or ...

4:25 PM

Hmm I wonder whats the best way to make a domain drop all emails... set the MX records to a non routable address? (127.0.0.1?, 0.0.0.0?) ... what do you think fellow sysadmins?

@Nick Uninstall the SMTP server?

2

@MichaelHampton I mean directly from the DNS ... using 3rd party email hoster

Don't have MX records at all?

@Bob most email services default to the A record if there is no MX dont they?

They do?

4:27 PM

@Bob I think so

@Nick Huh. You're right.

> This document defines the No Service MX, informally called null MX,
as a simple mechanism by which a domain can indicate that it does not
accept email.

tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-appsawg-nullmx-10

>
To indicate that a domain does not accept email, it advertises a
single MX RR (see [RFC1035], section 3.3.9) with an RDATA section
consisting of preference number 0, and a zero length label, written
in master files as ".", as the exchange domain, to denote that there
exists no mail exchanger for a domain. Since "." is not a valid host
name, a null MX record can not be confused with an ordinary MX
record. The use of "." as a pseudo-host name meaning no service
available is modeled on the SRV RR [RFC2782] where it has a similar

Well, I guess that's your answer.

Assuming the sending server correctly follows RFC 5321, as long as an MX record exists they must not fall back to A, so this should work for existing servers too.

qroberts

4:58 PM

Anyone know how write a batch file that disconnects from the currently connected VPN after a so many seconds?

@qroberts Probably something like timeout /t 123 /nobreak && rasdial "VPN name" /disconnect

qroberts

perfect! thanks

Dennis Kaarsemaker

6:11 PM

So far every case of Ebola in this country got it by helping people. So relax, Republicans, you're in the clear.

Tweeted by TinaDupuy on October 15, 2014 at 10:27 PM

6:38 PM

Well, that's pretty offensive.

7:28 PM

don't ever use DNS for NAS storage names in VMware.

because inevitably, the power company will shut down the power to the site, your battery will run out and the generator won't start up...

and the onsite person won't be able to identify the device named "SAN1"

@ewwhite when all else fails, call 0118 999 881 999 119 725...3

2

Chopper3

@MichaelHampton really?

(had a long time to make that reference)

so it's totally my fault for relying on DNS for storage, right?

quickly fixed with an ESXi host file entry.

Chopper3

@ewwhite just stick to FC/FCoE :)

7:42 PM

@Chopper3 never

@Chopper3 Yes, and about what I expect from MSNBC

@MichaelHampton hey now!

Chopper3

@MichaelHampton But you do know that if you asked the entire world to define 'selfishness' most would think of the US Republican Party right? It's what they're famous for.

6

Exactly

@Chopper3 Yes, I'm well aware of the reputation. That doesn't necessarily mean it's true. In fact it's been my experience that exactly the opposite is true.

7:53 PM

nope... true

9:43 PM

Another colour MFC in the dumpster room again

I don't think I need another one

Spare parts?

@MichaelHampton I already have one for spare parts

I used the drum out of it the other day

10:03 PM

@MarkHenderson So... can I expect to see another printer disassembly soon?

@Bob No idea :p

They're not very interesting

Most printers operate int he same manner

Nooooooo our technet subscription has finally expired

I guess our 90 day extension period is over

@MarkHenderson Too late to do a last minute d/l of everything?

@Bob I already did everything I thought I needed but I just found myself in need of a Server 2003 SP2 disc

But that's OK I have an MSDN I can get that from

10:34 PM

12  ae-4-90.edge2.Washington1.Level3.net (4.69.149.206)  24.400 ms ae-3-80.edge2.Washington1.Level3.net (4.69.149.142)  22.534 ms ae-2-70.edge2.Washington1.Level3.net (4.69.149.78)  23.087 ms
13  US-CELLULAR.edge2.Washington1.Level3.net (4.79.23.210)  23.909 ms  26.014 ms  24.198 ms
14  10.0.123.54 (10.0.123.54)  59.502 ms  58.626 ms  58.243 ms
15  10.0.248.54 (10.0.248.54)  72.456 ms  60.237 ms  62.270 ms
16  10.0.248.59 (10.0.248.59)  58.984 ms  60.339 ms  61.408 ms
17  10.0.125.71 (10.0.125.71)  85.773 ms  69.203 ms  85.221 ms

Anyone see a problem here?

You appear to be routing to a wireless service?

11:21 PM

@MarkHenderson Yes, I ran a traceroute to someone's mobile phone. Do you see the problem yet? (Actually I see at least two problems...)

i feel like I'm in highschool

The obvious one is the RFC1918 addresses at the end

but that's not exactly illegal to route through private IP space

It might cause...issues... but that's one problem. The other one is that I saw those addresses come back at all. Which never should have happened.

A dozen routers upstream of me should have dropped those packets as having invalid source addresses. None did.

And that is why we still have DDoS attacks.

Wait, how does an Echo Reply with a spoofed/invalid source address enable a DDoS attack?

@Bob It doesn't. The fact that traffic with invalid source addresses is allowed to pass anywhere does.

@MichaelHampton But if it's only ICMP that's allowed through?

...hmm, that doesn't really make sense either.

11:31 PM

@Bob The big DDoS attacks are usually UDP, though there is TCP SYN as well that's often mitigated

I'm only demonstrating the existence of the problem here

Without, you know, actually launching an attack