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12:13 AM
-1
Q: Do drivers that are not active change anything about a computer?

DarkSheepI have a situation where I am using a backup product for a system of computers. The computers are very sensitive, highly unstable and require very high reliability. To test the backups I usual lay require to inject a driver to avoid blue screens in recovery mode. If I install the driver before...

I removed my eye mask just to read that terrible question!! It's going back on!
no, I should realize gimp masks are NSFW here.
 
@Jacob you say that
 
@cole no you say that
 
I would not wish my job on anyone lol.
 
12:45 AM
That's terrible, right?
 
@ewwhite what's bad about it?
 
"These Chicken Strips tho," though. A group of people somewhere decided that Burger King should, too, get in on meme Twitter, but as this was run up the flagpole they couldn't get past one tangled knot: Arbitrary Corporate Proper Nouns. So, the result: a billion dollar company using social media to sound like a 19-year-old, but unable to get itself to de-capitalize the phrase "chicken strips."
 
so, some horrible gossip mag doesn't like Burger King. got it
 
I find the meme-speak a little funny.
I just explained "tho" to my wife
 
could you explain it to me?
I bought one of those 5 packs of chicken strips and they were horrible, btw.
 
12:49 AM
I did, too..
and they were too big... and drenched in BBQ
 
yes, exactly. they were swimming in the sauce.
too hard, as well. cooked too long.
 
I'm all about Chicken Fries...
but "tho" == "though". Meant to emphasize or give a good spin on whatever precedes it.
"dat azz tho" == "Oh, my gosh, that ASS was great!!"
 
@ewwhite THEY ARE ALWAYS OUT OF THOSE
 
@RyJones gotta go early! 11am or bust
 
@ewwhite I did not know that
 
1:11 AM
@RyJones oh I like that.
 
1:32 AM
@ewwhite I want some... Looks like I'm going out for dinner
 
2:04 AM
@cole get some
 
 
1 hour later…
3:08 AM
Now I want chicken and waffles.
 
3:40 AM
@Wesley Shari's sells a weak version, open 24/7
 
3:51 AM
@RyJones I would eat Shari's waffles.
 
@Wesley hit the road
 
@RyJones I had a Shari's just down the road from me growing up.
Brings back memories
 
So i spent the first 3 hours of day in a meeting, and the last 3 hours digging through log files
What a fucking day
 
4:06 AM
@RyJones Its pretty cold today but maybe I shall
Also my Dell order was meant to arrive today but I got an email this morning saying it's delayed by a week which sucks balls
 
@MarkHenderson weak
@Wesley I got a gift
 
@ewwhite Part of my 3 hour meeting this morning was going over your quote. We're dealing with our current datacentre move and DR implementation right now, but my boss has approved the 192Gb of RAM and will probably approve your server as well
I thought he would baulk at doing both but he wants to move on the RAM right now and do the server after the RAM
 
@RyJones I don't quite know what that is?
 
@RyJones Step 1: Cut a hole in a box
 
@Wesley very sparkly
 
4:09 AM
-1
Q: How can I connect to my own email server?

Coach0512I just started my own email server with hmailserver. I am running my email service on my own domain. I want to be able to connect to my email service with a client. Between CNAME, MX, and hmailserver smtp settings, can you please explain to me how to set up my domain and hmailserver to be able ...

^ What on earth.
 
I don't even have the energy to moderate lately
 
The monkeys are throwing poop again.
 
And it's fucking shit like that that drains what I do hve
 
Kill it in the brain with chemicals.
 
4:28 AM
blah
I need something other than outlook to open up and view a pst file
 
@JourneymanGeek That's an interesting situation.
 
annoyingly, my go to tool is for outlook express and wlm only
 
@MarkHenderson alrighty
 
There's a bazillion PST tools.
Most of which are probably chock full of viruses.
 
4:37 AM
Yeah, that's an issue
 
@JourneymanGeek Can you crack it open with a hex editor and look at the 1s and 0s?
 
5:12 AM
@Wesley: tempting but no
Oh, bother. I MIGHT know something that works
Current version is not free, but reasonably priced for what it does, but I'll give the free, older version a shot first
 
5:27 AM
good morning
 
6:04 AM
hm. Opened them up in outlook. Stuff I was looking for wasn't there
 
6:24 AM
G'morning
 
6:39 AM
G'day
It's a bit blowey out there
 
7:10 AM
morning
 
8:08 AM
mornin'
 
ugh, it is really hard to find a USB to mini centronics cable that supports ECP
 
o0
mini centronics?
I have never heard of such a beast
 
> So, must I apt-get remove erlang in order to install rabbitmq-server? Is this safe? I am unfamiliar with what this erlang is.
s/what this erlang is/everything/
 
oh god how do i do this i am not good with computer
@Chopper3 had an excellent game of Battlefield 4 rush last night, SRAW'd a full enemy little bird seconds into the game.
 
8:23 AM
@tombull89 oh that IS fun isn't it - I took down one kind of heli (can't recall what) with an RPG once and I leapt up shouting :)
 
@JourneymanGeek can you track this guy down and give him a good talking too please.
 
@Chopper3 yeah, I also cheered...gutted I wasn't recording at the time :(
 
@tombull89 I have that shadowplay thing on my gpu's - it constantly records with almost no 'cost' - have a look, see if yours can do it
@tombull89 got to go to bloody Ipswich now :( see you later
 
@Chopper3 AMD have the Raptr software which is more bloated and crappy than the catalyst control center D:
toodleoo
 
yay, got a hotfix from Riverbed. Finally ready to migrate to our brand new /22. And now: packet loss to it.
 
8:26 AM
bye
 
There's no need to hugely downvote this but ::boggles::
 
Why would you run a dist-upgrade and not reboot the system? What's the point?
 
@pauska service patches which are no longer supported on older versions
 
@DennisNolte what do you define as a "service patch"?
 
8:53 AM
@pauska think f.e. squeeze and shellshock, either you manually patch bash or switch to squeeze-lts or dist-upgrade.
similiar to f.e. apache or tomcat or whatever service they are running
 
ok, so we are assuming that someone is running a server without Ubuntu LTS?
in a production workload
 
@pauska you know how it works, LTS will be over some day too, and as long as "everything" works, there often is not enough time/money to upgrade.
@pauska if its just some "non-lts" well, they got it coming anyway :)
 
On SF if you assume everyone is not in productions and is really on their workstation it makes so much more sense of the WTF.
 
@Iain do not spoil..
 
@DennisNolte LTS releases are supported for 5 years.. are you telling me that someone can't reboot their system once every 5 years?
cause any kind of critical or security update is handled through a regular upgrade, not dist-upgrade
so it still does not make any sense at all to run dist-upgrade without rebooting
 
9:01 AM
hmm if i argued 5 years without rebooting you are right.
But(!) from all i think i said i was not.
Instead i tried to make a point that there might be situations where you are not yet able to reboot because of $reason, but need that "service update" for $another_reason right now.

maybe i am still unclear in expressing my thoughts correctly, or i am so fucked up already that i can't talk logic anymore.
 
9:18 AM
@Iain Ow
Sad thing is most of the CS folk I've run into from there have been pretty competent.
 
9:28 AM
@DennisNolte: Usually no, you'd set up a service window, and if you REALLY needed $new_shiny_version of software either run a backport, or put on your big boy pants and do it right.
 
9:49 AM
sorry... had to downvote that
 
What ?
 
@Iain The dist-upgrade question
 
Dan
Morning
 
10:22 AM
morn
 
10:38 AM
nothing like a GIVE ME TEH CODEZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ! question
-3
Q: Ip tables issue

Vladimir PestaI have two linux servers - one is used as gateway and second is used as web server. Let's say gateway have a public yyy.yyy.yyy.yyy address and web server have internal xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx address. I need to set up a rule, which allow me to use that website - reroute the port 80 from gateway to inter...

 
SF desperately need a banner on users posting on freaking 5 year old post, getting pretty annoying -.-
 
10:56 AM
good morning
 
0
Q: vigor 2960 won't start after firmware upgrade

exelorI tried to upgrade the firmware of a Vigor 2960 through their interface. Everything was working fine until the reboot. The upgrade was from 1.0.7.0 to 1.0.8.2. It rebooted for a while and now I can't see the router page even directly connected through LAN. It doesn't do anything. I tried this u...

300mbps fiber with PPPoE
shudder
 
Dan
Trying to work out how arsed I'm feeling about making a new NetScaler lab
 
11:17 AM
Had to flex my C muscles today
 
woo hoo !
 
Annoying git issue, where git keeps hanging when fetching over http. Turns out to be a bug in git
 
Dan
@DennisKaarsemaker Nice work
Is git written in C?
 
the core parts are
 
Dan
Ah
 
11:19 AM
with a healthy dose of shellscript and perl
but this was all C
 
Dan
@DennisKaarsemaker I never got on with Perl
 
I've been forced to
 
Dan
@DennisKaarsemaker It's been many years, I suppose being partially C-derived I ought to have a play, not that I need to
 
it's a language not worth learning unless you have an actual need
 
Dan
@DennisKaarsemaker Fuck it then
I find having a feel for C and a decent understanding of C# gets me as far as I ever need to go
 
11:22 AM
when on windows, powershell is rapidly becoming a must
 
Dan
@DennisKaarsemaker Oh, yeah - I don't really count that
Because agreed, it's just part of the background now
 
11:42 AM
-1
Q: Scripting command that can be executed on Macs to actually generate/remove (NOT SIMPLY BIND/UNBIND) those Macs as computer objects Active Directory?

Digital ImpermanenceI have searched the stacks fairly thoroughly to find a scripting language-based command that can help me develop a script to be executed on Macs capable of actually generating (NOT SIMPLY BINDING) those Macs as computer objects in Active Directory. I have found several excellent scripts that BIN...

What on earth is going on here?
 
what?
mac, AD? binding?
fuck macs
 
@MichaelHampton in respect of ?
 
@Iain I'm not sure if he's doing it wrong or not.
I'm pretty sure he isn't very experienced though.
 
I looked at it earlier and gave up too - not really my field
 
I really have no idea what he's asking.. I also read the question and just closed it..
 
11:46 AM
yeah, closed it as well as unclear
 
anyway @MichaelHampton where are you hoping to get with meta.serverfault.com/questions/4146/should-we-have -a-general-reference-close-reason ?
 
@Iain More conversation for starters.. Eventually I want to split the minimal understanding close reason into two close reasons. One for go read the docs/ask the vendor/etc and another for you don't know what you're doing questions.
 
Wouldn't that require us loosing one of the others though?
 
Hm. Or maybe those are the same thing.
Not if I can get SE to turn on the extra close reasons.
 
How would that fit with the new CoC which requires and 'assume good faith' ?
 
11:52 AM
"Good faith" merely means assuming that the user is honestly asking a question and not trying to troll us. Not at all the same as a user asking an off topic or inappropriate question.
 
That's not quite how I understood it - If I can find jaydles comment I'll reread it
 
Sure, if "assume good faith" means something else then it should be made clear
 
We could try a Canonical Q&A along the lines of the Licensing or Capacity Planning.

Q: Why have I been sent here
A: Because the community feels that you need to spend some time with the documentation before attempting to continue.

I doubt it would fly at SE HQ though.
2
 
i like that... designing our own close reasons
 
In the short term, I want to make the minimal understanding close reason clearer. Whether that ends up being one rewritten close reason, or two, or three linked to eleven meta posts.
AND FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD, GET RID OF POST AS GUEST
 
11:58 AM
I also think that

1. Banning people from SO from asking questions would be an overall positive
2. Requiring people to answer questions which are positively received before being able to continue asking questions would be useful. When all is said and done a real sysadmin should be able to contribute more than questions to SF
 
Assume good faith is not a bad thing at all; it merely means assuming that in posting things here, people are not being intentionally malicious.
they do it in wikipedia too.
 
"You must have 10 reputation on this site to ask a question."
 
there are a few basic questions we could stand to answer as well - from time to time, even I get stumped by a lack of, say, the magic words required to make ruby realize it has openssl on fedora (hint: not recompiling it)
 
or we should hand out fairydust
 
I don't think I've ever seen anyone being intentionally malicious. Except spammers, but that doesn't count.
 
12:01 PM
I think one of the things we hate more than anyone cares to admit is poor grasp of English ;)
@MichaelHampton how about that troll whose name I can't quite recall, who keeps running for moderator everywhere?
 
he-who-shall-not-be-named?
 
@MichaelHampton they did at SO...they should here too.
 
@FalconMomot Yeah, I thought about that. But he asked a question not too long ago, and it wasn't horrible.
 
@MichaelHampton he's done that a few times only as a trap.
 
that's so he doesn't get banned
 
12:03 PM
post as guest is evil for sure.
why the hell are we still burdened with it
 
Because SE wants participation to be "easy"
 
Because not everyone has a disposable email address to register on a new site?
 
yes, because signing up is hard.
 
Dan
@MichaelHampton Heh, there's a list of great reasons why you can't post anywhere on the Internet as a "guest"
 
yes, participation should be so easy you don't even have to put the slightest bit of effort into asking your question at all!
 
12:04 PM
My name is John/Jane Smith. I was born on 1-1-1970...
 
registration with federated auth is certainly easier and faster than 10 minutes of research on your problem.
 
Dan
@FalconMomot I think we should have a joining panel - all new members have to come into the Comms room - if they're not in tears after 30 minutes then they get to post a question
 
ha
we would run out of crosses.
 
@MichaelHampton not necessarily but being able to continue to ask questions yes... your first question is free so to speak
 
then here's an idea...
what say we let you post more, if they get voted up, and not let you post more if they get voted down, closed, and deleted?
:P
 
Dan
12:06 PM
I have this diagram of how the SF signing up process should be - the top is the Internet (Or "cloud", if you will), the oval is the "Ask a question" button. I'll let you work out where SF Chat is yourselves
 
File server changeover is going about as well as you'd expect ...things just don't go smoothly, ha.
 
Dan
@NathanC You invoked the word "change" - what the hell did you expect, you lunatic
 
@NathanC with "FileServer" you mean your Synology-thing?
 
@MichelZ Yeah....
@Dan Indeed :P
 
@FalconMomot no, I'm saying that to continue asking questions you should have to provide useful content in the form of peer reviewed and upvoted answers
 
12:08 PM
there we go. That's not a FileServer :D
 
@MichelZ Well, technically the NAS is just the storage ...the files are served by a server ;)
 
ah
that's acceptable ;)
 
@Iain it's not a terrible idea.
 
I know
 
I'm using a failover cluster with the NAS as a backend (over iSCSI)
 
12:09 PM
it would, of course, require us to actually upvote some answers
though, I have been getting a crapload of necro-rep (including necro-accepts!) lately for some reason...
 
@FalconMomot or "them"...
the new users can vote, too
it's not only us
 
@FalconMomot If questions are anything to go by the hoards aren't going to be able to provide answers so the volume will drop significantly so we'll all end up in a much more positive frame of mind.
I think we'd be much happier and more upvotey then.
@MichaelHampton do people have to register to ask questions/participate on SO ?
 
@Iain They have to regsiter to ask, but not to answer
 
@MichaelHampton That should be an easy win for you then. Given that >60% of our questions come from SO users
 
Oh goodie, our copiers can't connect to the share ...all of my wats
 
12:17 PM
@Iain We already went through this a few months ago, SE shot it down and put in their own idea.
Oh crap, it's actually been more than a year.
 
@MichaelHampton yeah and I went looking at that stuff recently because I wanted to poke shog9 about something he said would be looked at in the spring but I couldn't find that either
is there a way to search comments ?
 
Google?
A carefully constructed SEDE query, perhaps.
 
Actually google worked once I found the right word fugit
 
250
Q: Should we add a "Do my work for me" close reason?

BohemianThis question was prompted by this SO question It's a classic example of a "paste in requirements and ask for working code to solve it" (typically such questions are homework, but not always). Firstly, do we all agree these questions are off topic? Secondly, if they are, how to close, because ...

 
and it looks like the answer was meta.serverfault.com/questions/6105/…
-1
Q: Use The Half Reaction Method to Balance the Following Equation in Acidic Solution

user137452$\ce{Fe^2+ + MnO4- -> Fe^3+ + Mn^2+}$ What steps should I take?

 
12:33 PM
Oh...wow. The how to ask page is editable now.
 
the close reason
far too many questions on SF amount to read the documentation for me
 
Hm, our sales are up 8% from last year.
 
Dan
@cole Enjoy that bonus you won't get!
 
@Dan haha, right?
$493 million vs $457 million last year
 
Dan
@cole The faceless corp I used to work for used to love telling us all how little money there was and how there would be no payrises, while telling the investors how well things were going and how much cash we were making
 
12:37 PM
@Dan same here.
 
Dan
@cole Someone is being lied to :D
 
We're a $2 billion dollar company lol.
We do a lot of sales in the pharma industry.
 
Dan
I know this is Citrix, but I love this article:
It's a real reality check for PM's, Sales People and Managers who think creating a solid Active/Active failover DC for your infrastructure is a straightforward task
 
Client: "I enabled DHCP mode on our phone system... and now I can't access the web"
7
 
if a hop on your route to our website has 5% packet loss reported by mtr -- that's pretty bad, right?
 
12:47 PM
Only 5%? UPC used to have about 30% on average (in place where i lived. Really bad cables)
 
Dan
@ewwhite Have you considered moving into the corporate world?
 
@Dan Not always any better. I've got tales like that from the corporate world. From my current job, even.
 
Dan
@HopelessN00b Perhaps I should have said enterprise, places with IT teams etc
 
Well, Ed was all cloudy for a while... and I've heard some of those stories.
 
Dan
@HopelessN00b He just seems to work for insane places, I guess
 
12:50 PM
@Dan Been there. No reason to go back... then I'd be complaining about the dude in the cube who taps his feet too loud.
 
Dan
@ewwhite I didn't mean fulltime - consultancy etc
My best friend supports a bunch of SME's and, man, I just couldn't be arsed
Each to their own, though
 
@Dan I get stuff like this... "Thanks again for the call today. You seem extremely qualified to handle our needs... After thinking about it... I am not sure full time can work along with your consulting... If you can think about another way it could work, or if you can jump to full time, please let me know."
most companies really do want staff onboard
 
Dan
@ewwhite I suppose there's much too much room for ad-hoc consulting, but you could either start pitching yourself as a consultant/contractor to these people or just go fulltime at a consultancy
@ewwhite Depends on the function - one of the places I'm working with are undergoing an integration project while they merge with another enterprise. I reckon at least 50% of the people in the IT dept are currently contractors or outside consultants
 
I can't go back to real corporate... And consulting is just a way to fill in the gaps for people.
 
Dan
@ewwhite Well, yeah
Meh, I like it - just couldn't be doing with the sheer randomness of small clients I don't think
 
12:56 PM
@Dan they're forgetting my main pain point: Capacity! If you use more than 50% capacity per DC, you're screwed when failing over.
 
Dan
@DennisKaarsemaker In active/active, for sure
 
@Dan I have a captive audience, though... and the randomness keeps you sharp
 
Dan
@ewwhite Fair enough
 
Well, it appears I'm going to likely be looking for new employment. The start-up I'm with is going a bit too slow for my taste. So if anyone knows of anything out there as a Sr. Windows Engineer or Network Engineer telecommuting or doing nationwide consulting let me know.
 
Dan
@TheCleaner Good luck
 
1:07 PM
@Dan Thanks Dan. Frustrating because I really wanted this thing to take off strong as they intended. It's just slow and while that's fun for a while there really isn't a huge challenge.
 
@TheCleaner where are ya?
Looking for rogue DHCP servers.
 
@ewwhite Tulsa
 
1:28 PM
@TheCleaner there's work out there to be had
Chicago, man.
 
Thye winds have hardly dropped here all day cobs.noc.ac.uk/cobs/met/hilbre/getimage.php?code=5&span=1
 
@ewwhite Yeah, I know. However, with the kids and wife nice and settled, I'd like to find something either local or telecommute.
 
@TheCleaner You could fix things like that for me!
 
Debian jessie gets a lot of updates it seems, heh
@ewwhite All of my wats
 
@ewwhite :) I'd be happy to...as long as I didn't have to move. I'd even keep my Tulsa salary vs. Chicago salary.
 
1:35 PM
Is there a chance that enabling the phone system DHCP would have shut down the SBS 2011 server's DHCP service?
 
@ewwhite It won't shut down the service, but it might respond to a client's DHCP request first
 
client called me because his "PC guy" wasn't available at 5:30am Pacific time
 
If it's on the same routed network
 
@TheCleaner the same network... and the service was shut off...
client says he didn't shut it off..
 
@ewwhite SBS server got jealous and shut itself down
 
1:39 PM
@NathanC grr...I should pay attention to Ed's post better. Yeah SBS is weird like that...and Nathan is right.
Look for Event 1053 on the SBS server.
 
@TheCleaner It would actually be funny if that was the case. I know SBS likes being the only server in town and doesn't get along with others, lol
Including managed switches if they're doing DHCP
Here's a hint: don't use SBS.
 
Sometimes SBS is the only thing which makes financial sense
 
Until you add bew employees and exceed 25 users.
Then the *fun* begins.
 
way dangerous
 
1:44 PM
@Hennes True, but if you can afford managed switches and such, you can afford the ~$800 for an actual license
 
Only 800?
 
morning
 
Or 800 for the sever OS for the DC.
and again for the file and printserver (which I do not want on my DC)
and again for exchange
...
 
The gold close hammer I have for makes me jump every time it happens
 
@Hennes Eh, good point. But to that point as well, you can only have one SBS server on the network.
 
1:46 PM
Aye. It is nice if you are very small (say 5-10 users).
Once you need more you need to pay a lot more (or switch to a different OS)
Neither is fun.
 
Yeah. O365/Azure becomes a bit more desirable for those who don't want the large up-front cost of licenses
As you grow eventually you'd have on-premises, but Azure is decent for SME's without their own server room
 
aye
Though it requires a stable network connection and a backup network.
 
This is true, and that doesn't happen in some places (rural companies being an example)
 
Neither of which is cheap (assuming business SLA's)
 
Heh. We pay $1200/month for 10/10 fiber with a 99.99% SLA
 
1:49 PM
We had lines leaving our office in two directions (to prevent damage if people ever dug in the street). Getting that was hell and took a long long time
 
We're also potentially getting a 4G card to plug into our sonicwall as a backup
 
I think we paid Eur 1500 for a 5:1 overused 100mbit line
 
Sad part is, 4G's faster than our fiber...:P
 
Wireless is getting there. Not quite up to speed over here yet
 
At least LTE is
 
1:50 PM
Everybody already has wired or even fibre. So no need (and no investments) in high speed wireless.
 
Yeah. There's a lot of places in my state that don't have LTE (or in some cases, 4G at all)
 
@Hennes wait, you're supposed to buy more than ONE Windows Server license?
 
Rural areas are all DSL/satellite ;.;
Oh dear...
 
I prefer two domain controllers (on separate HW) and a fileserver (no putting corp. data outside the office where we have no control over it)
That may be outdated thinking though
 
@Hennes I virtualize it all!
never had a physical DC
 
1:53 PM
I've only had physicals. :(
But regardless of P/Virt. No all in one place/room/under_the_same_desk please
 
Dan
@ewwhite It's sometimes nice to have one physical DC, but yeah, virtualise in general
 
Nor both on the same hardware (in case of VMs)
 
@Hennes I have two DCs on two different ESXi hosts...file server is as of today on shared storage on a failover cluster (one VM on each host)
They're in the same room, but at least it's an actual "server room" even if it does lack ...um...fire suppression >.>
 
@NathanC Sounds good, but not as a small office setup with no dedicated admin
 
@Hennes Yeah, it was a lot worse before.
 
1:56 PM
I real need to fix my googling skills.
 
As in...one server was a DC/file server/print server/DNS/DHCP
with no failover
 
first the "gimp mask" and now, "dangers of sbs"
 
@ewwhite hahaha
 
Shaken baby syndrome (SBS) is a triad of medical findings: subdural hematoma, retinal hemorrhage, and cerebral edema from which some physicians, consistent with current medical understanding, infer child abuse caused by intentional shaking. In a majority of cases there is no visible sign of external trauma. SBS is often fatal and can cause severe brain damage, resulting in lifelong disability. Estimated death rates (mortality) among infants with SBS range from 15% to 38%; the median is 20%–25%. Up to half of deaths related to child abuse are reportedly due to shaken baby syndrome. Nonfatal ...
 
But your server is your baby and you should not shake it. :)
 
1:58 PM
"Currently we have over 30 x /24s at our city site" --- anyone share thought's on why such small subnets?!
 
Because they never heard of CIRD?
Or maybe they grew up with coax and collisions?
 

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