The Comms Room

1:37 AM

@ewwhite No. 1. You can't blame Google for doing what they set out to do; find the pages people want and hook them up 2. I'd have to run numbers but I think SO is at least as much to blame for low signal to noise ratio as anything.

I don't think further disassociation from SO would really help overall, as they have to be a large source of page-views and thus revenue. There has to be a way to preempt the cycle: New site, "elite" flood in, help vampires seek out "elite" and "ruin" site, site dies as other new site starts the cycle anew. How does SO maintain any level of quality and expertise? There has to be more "noise" flooding in there than SF.

@MichaelHampton I'm still sawing logs at 7AM, so no chance of me beating you to that. Also, there shouldn't be a buildup, there's two mods from Europe who are supposed to cover that.

Michael Hampton

1:57 AM

@ChrisS Yeah, we have a stream of crap. SO has a Niagara Falls of crap.

Wesley

3:06 AM

Poor @ewwhite:

-1

Q: Why are --older-than and --younger-than killall options missing in RHEL/CentOS?

I've experienced this issue in cleaning up scripts written by developer who were writing for Ubuntu systems, as well as ServerFault questions like this. Is there any reason the -o, -y (--older-than and --younger-than) options are missing from the killall executable of the psmisc package on EL sy...

Ry Jones

3:41 AM

fucking ay it's windy tonight

Falcon Momot

4:26 AM

flickering power and all

Ry Jones

Keep hearing booms, which I assume are transformers giving up life

Falcon Momot

it's pretty rainy today.

more so than usual, I do believe.

@ChrisS I'm usually around for European hours ;)

Iain

6:53 AM

G'day

faker

7:47 AM

I like working with the IUS repos. Clients wants PHP updated to 5.4: yum replace php53u --replace-with php54. Done!

Chopper3

9:22 AM

@Iain Mornin'

Dennis Kaarsemaker

Ry Jones

@DennisKaarsemaker always

10:36 AM

11:21 AM

Whut? I open the BOFH channel and all I see is Astley?

Dennis Kaarsemaker

11:50 AM

@Hennes you expected worse?

Hennes

I actually followed the muppet link with my eyes wide open.

Aside from hearing the song a thousand times to often it is nice.

Dan

12:15 PM

@Chopper3 Put in a cheeky offer for £550 for this: ebay.co.uk/itm/… and they accepted

@Chopper3 Tell me I did the right thing before I pay!

MichelZ

12:27 PM

sup

@Dan for a blade system with two blades? not too shabby

what generation is this?

also: do you expect to buy more blades? :D

Dennis Kaarsemaker

they seem to be older generation

Dan

@MichelZ I'm hoping @Chopper3 can help me out - was looking at the chassis and IC's rather than the blades

Dennis Kaarsemaker

could even be G1 blades, as I don't see a Gx number

which are ancient and scrap

MichelZ

2 x HP Proliant BL460C SERVERS - 2 x XEON E5320 1.86GHZ CPUs , 14GB RAM , NO HARD DRIVES.

ark.intel.com/products/28031/…

Q4 '06 - Q1 '09

Dennis Kaarsemaker

yeah, G1's it is. The blades are trash.

Dan

12:32 PM

@DennisKaarsemaker Yeah, +1

But it has 2x OA's and switches

Dennis Kaarsemaker

I can fill that chassis up with G1 blades for free for you :)

Iain

1:07 PM

It's a bit windy out there today, makes cycling tough

Dan

@Iain :( Off out for 7.5mi later

Did you do your long ride today?

Iain

@Dan We did 66 miles - about average really but the wind was dead against us for a fair distance through Runcorn/Frodsam aand back towards chester.

Dan

@Iain Feels like a long way!

I was working in Chester last week

Iain

1:24 PM

@Dan strava.com/activities/211854390

A bit of exploring, we generally don't go through the tunnel to the Liverpool side

Dan

Wow, impressive area to cover

What's interesting is that, if we take the calorie counts from the devices as gospel, you're burning around the same amount of calaries per hour as I do on a run

And there's no way I could do 4 hours

Iain

Being located north Wirral, our options are a bit limited

Cycling is way more efficient than running

Dan

@Iain Can you not get into N Wales?

@Iain Yeah, but I'd have thought an hours cycling would be easier than an hours running

You can't really compare, I guess

Iain

@Dan yeah we get there all the time

Dan

@Iain Gotta be nicer than Runcorn. Company I'm contracted to is based there, I wasn't sold when I went for interview :D

Iain

1:31 PM

Over the winter we can go through the Birkenhead tunnel at any time on a Sunday so that opens up going that way and or to places like Southport

Dan

@Iain Do you just ride for 4 hours solid?

Iain

@Dan it's just different roads, we ride to Wales all the time

Dan

@Iain Are you part of a formal cycle club?

Iain

@Dan elapsed time today was 4:51, moving time was 4:15, we had a café stop 60 miles in - that was probably 30 minutes

Dan

@Iain Near enough home by then, I guess

Cycling still very much appeals to me, I'll get a bike one day

Iain

1:36 PM

I'm in a group, we have kit but no formal club rules, constitution, or committee

Dan

@Iain Ah, that sounds like more how I'd prefer tdo it

Iain

@Dan yeah but café stops are part oc cycling

Dan

@Iain Absolutely! Runners to tend to do the pub thing at the end

Iain

@Dan it works reasonably well, it's a facebook group I think we have about 300 people in it

cole

2:10 PM

Morning

Dan

@cole Heya

cole

@Dan how goes?

Dan

@cole Kind of bored tbh, nothing really on - just wasting time until I go for a run with Jane (Reworded so she doesn't sound like a pet!)

You?

cole

@Dan girlfriend just want to get me a coffee, just hanging out. She has a job interview at noon.

Trying to just chill out today - it's sunny and 11C here so not too cold.

Dan

Happy days

cole

2:13 PM

Also, gas is super cheap here. She just saw gas for $2.93/gallon

Pissed because I spent $3.01 on Friday to fill my tank.

Dan

Hahahaha, fuck off Cole

cole

haha

Dan

Ours is over double that

Around $7.14 per US Gallon

cole

Holy shit

Michael Hampton

It's even higher in most of Europe

Dan

2:16 PM

@cole Oh, that's cheap too at the minute

cole

ugh fuck that

MichelZ

how much's a gallon?

in litre :D

Michael Hampton

3.785 L

Dan

@cole I've spent ~$8.50 US Gal for the last few years

MichelZ

3$ for that? WTF

cole

2:17 PM

That's so gross.

Michael Hampton

Hey, governments gotta have their taxes.

cole

@MichaelHampton how's the prices up near you?

Michael Hampton

@cole About the same

cole

I'm trying to remember the last time I saw sub $3

MichelZ

about 7$ here

Dan

2:19 PM

@MichelZ How much per litre?

In EUR?

MichelZ

it's ~1.75 CHF

that's 1.45 €

Michael Hampton

Fuel tax

A fuel tax (also known as a petrol, gasoline or gas tax, or as a fuel duty) is an excise tax imposed on the sale of fuel. In most countries the fuel tax is imposed on fuels which are intended for transportation. Fuels used to power agricultural vehicles, and/or home heating oil which is similar to diesel are taxed at a different, usually lower rate. The fuel tax receipts are often dedicated or hypothecated to transportation projects so that the fuel tax is considered by many a user fee. In other countries, the fuel tax is a source of general revenue. Sometimes, the fuel tax is used as an ecotax...

And VAT on top of that?!?

MichelZ

nice, isn't it?

Dan

@MichelZ Quite a bit cheaper than here :(

Michael Hampton

Paying VAT on taxes...

MichelZ

2:22 PM

@Dan remind me where you are located again?

Dan

@MichelZ UK - home of super expensive petrol

MichelZ

ah

yeah, it's also the exchange rate I guess

Dan

Yeah, lots of variables

mossy

2:42 PM

@cole I'm downloading civ right now!

I played the demo last night. so good

cole

@mossy so good.

mossy

I haven't played a civ game since...

I was like 9

I can't remember what it was called. I'ma find out.

maybe civ 3

cole

I've never played multiplayer

I'm pretty rusty, I was never terribly good at Civ either - I started with Civ 4

Chopper3

3:40 PM

@Dan sorry for the late reply - I reckon you've done VERY well there, the blades and bits are actually useful - the firmware everywhere will need major upgrades I'm sure but if you want I can send you a bunch of memory and disks - just let me know what you want/need - fancy adding me on facebook btw - seeing as I'm finally on the bloody thing?

Michael Hampton

3:59 PM

serverfault.com/help/asking-rate-limited

Iain

4:39 PM

0

Q: Plink server refused to start shell/command

I'm trying to run a command on server using plink for example mkdir , but i get the error above . what's interesting is that : In winscp client i can connect to the server and right click -> create directory . what could be the problem ? and what does -N flag for plink do ? because according to t...

plink

:( $clueless - you know what to do

Dennis Kaarsemaker

MichelZ

5:02 PM

DIE, QUESTION, DIE!

Hennes

Did it die or not? That is the question.

Dan

@Chopper3 No worries - I just figured you'd see it at some point. That's good to know, I had an immediate bit of buyers remorse. Not quite sure how I'm going to get it, mind :D

Iain

@Hennes yeah it's dead but he OP can't read either

MichelZ

5:40 PM

@Hennes how poetic of you!

yeah, just found out that my ride tomorrow to vacation is an A380

score :D

Chopper3

@Dan I'm not allowed to lift anything - ever - otherwise I'd offer to help you - honestly I think you've done well - and do remember to ask for bits for it ok, one of my 'stock guys' has boxes of unused older memory etc. you can have ok.

Dan

@Chopper3 Well, I'm building a lab so I'll take anything I can get my hands on! If you can find me a G6 or two I'd be forever in your debt - quite happy to pay, by the way

hichris123

@ChrisS So here's a question for you: do you think that the SO close reason linking to SF is a problem?

Michael Hampton

Wait... G6's going into the skip? I'm obviously diving in the wrong dumpsters.

Chopper3

@Dan I'll see what I can do - my main stock guy - dyed-in-the-wool-ipswich-bloke - has the next week off but I'm there the week after and could grab you a bunch of stuff - where are you living these days as I will be passing Londonon the M25 that Thursday so could rop them off

Dan

6:01 PM

@Chopper3 I still live in Wolverhampton, but I could sort something

Dennis Kaarsemaker

6:59 PM

@MichaelHampton I'm throwing out G5's actively. And G6'es won't be repurposed, with active decommissioning starting Q1.

ewwhite

all of this HP talk.

I feel left out

@MichaelHampton and yes, I'm retiring all of my G6 HP ProLiants...

or relegating them to hypervisor duty at produce sites

G5's are now being left in the dumpster.

and I have G4's that I refuse to even remove from the data center.

On the positive, I've been learning WSUS this morning.

Michael Hampton

Are the G6's just not useful anymore?

ewwhite

@MichaelHampton they can be useful... the generations spanned Intel 5500-series Nehalem and 5600-series Westmere CPUs.

they still make good, cheap hypervisors, but don't see production produce work for me anymore

So I still have G6 ProLiants in use

but not for the main application...

very inexpensive.. e.g. $400-$600 for a DL380 G6 pretty well stocked

Michael Hampton

I don't need a lot of CPU

ewwhite

normal failure mode on the G6 ProLiant is the system board

so that tended to happen at the 4.5-5 year mark

and that's why I reserve them for clustered hypervisor duties.

@MichaelHampton tell me what you need. My guy in NY can help

Michael Hampton

7:11 PM

Right now, a home server to run a hypervisor for all the short-lived virtual machines I spin up

ewwhite

need storage space?

Michael Hampton

Around a 1TB usable, actually maybe a bit more than that

ewwhite

do you have a preference for big disks or small disks??

2.5 vs 3.5

Michael Hampton

A big chunk of that is my local CentOS mirror

Not really

ewwhite

Maybe you should take my DL370 G6.

Michael Hampton

7:14 PM

Oh yeah, that thing!

ewwhite

Single Intel X5550... 16GB RAM

all the storage space one could ever need.

or something like that

Michael Hampton

Yeah, I heard that one before

ewwhite

but for real, what's your budget

G6 is a perfect spec for virtualization.

Michael Hampton

For my home server? I haven't quite decided how much I want to spend

ewwhite

if you need need extreme I/O or too much RAM

You can get a DL380 G6 with a great spec (24GB or more) for ~$400

there are a few resellers/refurb places on eBay where I get that sort of hardware

Michael Hampton

7:19 PM

Plus storage?

ewwhite

uses 2.5" disks. G6/G7 can pretty much use anything.

8 bays by default... can go to 16 bays.

many of the ebay packages will include disks.

Michael Hampton

I've been kind of checking eBay every so often to see if any insane deals show up

ewwhite

72GB 146, 300, 450, 600, 900, 1.2TB SAS

Michael Hampton

I have this watchlisted right now

ewwhite

Hmm...

nah

tombull89

7:26 PM

Our G6's were retired last year. We've still got them, just need someone to buy them off us now (because we spent too much on them to send them for scrap)

ewwhite

looks a little rough

tombull89

I'd have them but I don't think the housemates would appricaite a C7000 in the house.

ewwhite

7:48 PM

is this really bad UX?

Michael Hampton

No, that is really bad UX.

ewwhite

Because I didn't realize there was a place for a checkmark...

and next thing I know... Downloaded 16,358MB of 96,789MB

Michael Hampton

Yeah, I see the checkbox, but it doesn't automatically strike me as a checkbox

ewwhite

This is what happens when @mdmarra goes on vacation

I break stuff

3

But really, how do I get a particular computer to update immediately via WSUS?

I'm sure @MichaelHampton knows...

Michael Hampton

@ewwhite Reboot it?

ewwhite

8:04 PM

27

Q: Best way to fully update a new installed Windows?

I am wondering, what is the best way to automatically update a new installation of Windows (Windows 7)? When I manually update a new install of Windows 7 SP1, I get about 45 updates. Installing those is not the problem, but after installing those, up come new updates. One installs them and then...

windows administration windows-update update

hissss!

Michael Hampton

@ewwhite Seriously, Windows checks for updates right after it's restarted

ewwhite

yum -y update is wayyy easier

@MichaelHampton there's no way to force a system to "update now"

Michael Hampton

Unless, of course, it just installed updates. Then you're hosed.

ewwhite

without some third party tools, it seems...

Michael Hampton

@ewwhite gallery.technet.microsoft.com/scriptcenter/…

@ewwhite wuauclt.exe /detectnow /updatenow

ewwhite

8:08 PM

Make my VISTA machine update!!!

Ry Jones

@mdmarra is mostly concerned with fantasy football, if his twitter feed is to be trusted

ewwhite

@RyJones I'll break him

@MichaelHampton Any thoughts on this one?

2

Q: Recreate XFS Partition with Existing Filesystem

I have a CentOS server with two RAID arrays. The OS array and a DATA array. Long story short, recently had tons of trouble with the OS and had to reload CentOS (was 5.7 and went to 6.5). Everything is working with the OS portion now. However, I'm having an issue with my DATA array. The array...

centos6 xfs parted

Michael Hampton

@ewwhite Yeah, I think I'll go test my restores.

Ry Jones

8:30 PM

nice

2

Iain

8:45 PM

@ewwhite a couple of segments for you to put into your indoor bike strava.com/activities/206401906/segments/4866757087 strava.com/activities/206401906/segments/4866757114

@RyJones not !

Ry Jones

@Iain agreed

Nick Alexeev

9:29 PM

Folks, this question is getting closed on EE.SE (electrical engineering stack). I have a sneaking suspicion that it's more of a networking question rather than electronics question. Would it work if I migrated it to ServerFault?

1

Q: What's the difference between virtual circuit switching and circuit switching?

Circuit switching's packets take the same route as virtual circuit switching's do. So, how do I distinguish between virtual circuit switching and circuit switching?

circuit network switching

Michael Hampton

@NickAlexeev Looks more like Network Engineering though I'm not sure if it's "too basic" for them or not

Nick Alexeev

@MichaelHampton Thanks. I'll go check with Network Engineering.

Iain

@NickAlexeev I imagine you'd get that chucked back at you if it was sent to FS

BigHomie

11:39 PM

That sweet sweet sound of necrorep in the morning.

Ry Jones

@BigHomie I didn't know you were into necro

BigHomie

I thought all the big leaguers were heavy into necro

@ewwhite, @MDMarra, @EvanAnderson

Ry Jones

I bet @cole and @Jacob like necrorep, too. And inbox notifications.

ewwhite

0

Q: IO blocking and performance loss after 30 minutes uptime on ext4 HD

I'm running Ubuntu 14.04, after 30 minutes I get a performance loss which can be reproduced by opening and closing gedit, when the slowdown is active it takes 2 seconds to close an empty document as opposed to < 500ms without. This effects all applications in a similar way. Unusual thing is that...

ubuntu ext4 journaling

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