The Comms Room

ewwhite

12:00 AM

@MichaelHampton what LANG should a brotha be using?

freiheit

en_US.UTF-8

Michael Hampton

What @freiheit said

ewwhite

Produce.

so hard to resist...

changed the LANG in i18n...

Info: Loading facts in /var/opt/lib/pe-puppet/lib/facter/concat_basedir.rb
Info: Loading facts in /var/opt/lib/pe-puppet/lib/facter/puppetdb_server_status.rb
Info: Loading facts in /var/opt/lib/pe-puppet/lib/facter/root_home.rb
Could not retrieve zpool_version: undefined method `captures' for nil:NilClass
Info: Caching catalog for coast_produce_mirror.coast.coastproduce.com
Info: Applying configuration version '1393459250'
Error: Could not prefetch package provider 'rpm': invalid byte sequence in US-ASCII

let's check...

# tail -f yum.log
Feb 18 01:51:15 Installed: 1:telnet-0.17-47.el6_3.1.x86_64

# tail -f yum.log
Feb 18 01:51:15 Installed: 1:telnet-0.17-47.el6_3.1.x86_64
Feb 26 16:04:16 Updated: hp-snmp-agents-9.50-2564.40.rhel6.x86_64

Michael Hampton

At least run puppet in en_US.UTF-8 even if you have to run Produce **** in C

ewwhite

so the LANG=en_US.UTF-8 fixed it...

either that or a restart of the puppet agent...

Summary of Arch:

   x86_64 = 29

Summary of Ensure:

               absent = 51
   9.50-2564.40.rhel6 = 17
   9.50-2564.34.rhel5 = 9
       8.1.1-22.rhel4 = 2
   9.40-2506.37.rhel6 = 1

so down to one...

Anonymous

12:05 AM

Speaking of TPB, you all should answer the Lund University survey there is in the homepage of TPB

ewwhite

@freiheit add it as an answer.

freiheit

1

A: Puppet package "ensure => latest" does not always work

I believe the relevant problem is this: Debug: Executing '/bin/rpm -qa --nosignature --nodigest --qf '%{NAME} %|EPOCH?{%{EPOCH}}:{0}| %{VERSION} %{RELEASE} %{ARCH} :DESC: %{SUMMARY}\n'' Error: Could not prefetch package provider 'yum': invalid byte sequence in US-ASCII Which is talked about in...

ewwhite

@freiheit this is why it's hard to be stealing Puppet Enterprise.

(no support)

freiheit

@ewwhite And can't upgrade to puppet 3.4.3?

ewwhite

# rpm -qa | grep "^pe-"
pe-ruby-rgen-0.6.5-1.pe.el6.noarch
pe-hiera-1.2.2.1-1.pe.el6.noarch
pe-ruby-stomp-1.2.9-4.pe.el6.noarch
pe-ruby-shadow-2.2.0-3.pe.el6.x86_64
pe-mcollective-2.2.4-2.pe.el6.noarch
pe-ruby-1.9.3.448-4.pe.el6.x86_64
pe-augeas-1.1.0-1.pe.el6.x86_64
pe-mcollective-common-2.2.4-2.pe.el6.noarch
pe-ruby-augeas-0.5.0-3.pe.el6.x86_64
pe-facter-1.7.3.1-1.pe.el6.x86_64
pe-puppet-3.3.1.1-1.pe.el6.noarch
pe-libyaml-0.1.4-3.el6.x86_64
pe-ruby-ldap-0.9.12-4.pe.el6.x86_64
pe-rubygem-deep-merge-1.0.0-3.pe.el6.noarch

it's its own set of packages

and installation tree

Michael Hampton

12:14 AM

Yeah, but you can untar it into a directory and point a yumrepo at it.

ewwhite

@MichaelHampton is Puppet Enterprise worth $9072 for my environment?

Joel E Salas

@ewwhite fuck no

Michael Hampton

@ewwhite When is the last time Puppet Labs supported you?

ewwhite

@MichaelHampton when the instructor cradled my ballzack at Puppet Training.

2

Michael Hampton

@ewwhite Yeah, but you paid separately for that, right?

ewwhite

12:17 AM

@MichaelHampton a few $k

Michael Hampton

@ewwhite The PE license file is so simple you don't even need a keygen...

ewwhite

I ditched my Logicworks work to do it... and they docked me the time/days/pay

@MichaelHampton yep

so are you saying Puppet and Ed are even?

Michael Hampton

@ewwhite Considering you're getting faster support here, I think you ought to be paying us.

ewwhite

@MichaelHampton I do... sometimes!

freiheit

@ewwhite I accept payments in the form of scotch and/or upvotes. ;)

Wesley

12:23 AM

Good news @freiheit. My balls ache less.

freiheit

ewwhite

@freiheit digging deeper, I think the issue was puppet versioning as well.

Wesley

@freiheit Wait, they're supposed to ache?

freiheit

@ewwhite I really think any of LANG=, puppet version or not having umlauts in any package descriptions would fix it for an individual box.

@Wesley I don't even know how you managed to get them to ache from bicycling in the first place... I mean..... yeah....

I think that means it's time to go home

Wesley

@freiheit Dunno. Just felt some taint discomfort for a few rides. My butt is still getting used to being planted on a bike. I'm just in my second consistent week of daily rides.

Michael Hampton

12:27 AM

I just... LANG=C. In this day and age. WTF.

Wesley

So oddly, while I am in the process of emailing my weeping sore of a client that I am no longer going to be doing business with him, one of his clients just emailed me and said "Hey I heard you will support our systems for $100 an hour; that seems okay. Uhh. So how do we go about this?"

ewwhite

@MichaelHampton Because I have to support this...

Wesley

I told my soon-to-be-ex client that I would contract with any of his stations if they wanted extended support for $125 an hour. Not sure where this $100 an hour nonsense is coming from.

But yeah, pointless because I'm giving him the total heave-ho in little while. Gotta get the email written all concise and pretty.

Don't work with contracts, kids. Stay in school.

ewwhite

@Wesley "My rate is $120 for incall or $150 for outcall. No GREEK!!"

Wesley

@ewwhite $150 and $225. I'm trying to get into Ed White kinda paper.

@ewwhite do you fire clients on the phone or email? I like email because it's written.

I don't trust this guy and don't think a phone call will be good. I want writing.

ewwhite

12:30 AM

@Wesley I don't fire them

Wesley

@ewwhite wut

@ewwhite You live in an alternate universe and just come into ours to talk about your netherparts.

ewwhite

@Wesley This client had a big problem yesterday, and I gladly continue to work with them.

Wesley

@ewwhite Yeah, but they pay right?

ewwhite

@Wesley $500/mo.

Wesley

@ewwhite Like, pay cash money on net 30 terms, no equity, no run around?

ewwhite

12:34 AM

so I limit the scope of what I do.

they just don't want to pay more than that... so if something will take too much of my time, I can spread it out to the next month

Wesley

@ewwhite shakes head we have this convo every month. I never understand how you do it without a contract and without people yelling "I pay you! You do stuff!"

ewwhite

Maybe @MichaelHampton is a better example.

Michael Hampton

@ewwhite Per-user locales! echo LANG=C > $HOME/.i18n

echo LC_ALL=C >> $HOME/.i18n

ewwhite

@MichaelHampton "home" is a nebulous concept in produce-land

Wesley

@ewwhite Yeah, I think @MichaelHampton probably has a Season 5 Breaking Bad off-the-grid cabin that has nice, permafrost graves of past problem clients.

Michael Hampton

12:36 AM

@ewwhite Hack the startup script

ewwhite

wife's account:

[jamiew@Testa ~]$ pwd
/ppro/homedirs/pts_0

so much legacy cruft...

# .bash_profile

# User specific aliases and functions

# Source global definitions
if [ -f /etc/bashrc ]; then
        . /etc/bashrc
fi

HISTFILE=~/.bash_history; export HISTFILE
HISTSIZE=200; export HISTSIZE
. /etc/default/ppro
. $DIR/bin/STARTDBC.TXT

# Set up the search paths:
        PATH=$PATH:.

# Set up the shell environment:
        set +u
        trap "echo 'logout'" 0

# Set up the shell variables:
        if [ -f $DIR/bin/hphw/baddisk ] ; then
                banner WARNING
                echo "POSSIBLE BAD UNIX DISK(S)"

Michael Hampton

/etc/default/ppro looks like a nice place.

ewwhite

I would, but I don't fully control it.

Wesley

@ewwhite So would five hours or so be considered too much of your time for this client? Since that's going to devalue your time well below standard rates?

ewwhite

@Wesley No, because I'm looking long-term

I'll jack up rates

Joel E Salas

12:51 AM

@ewwhite He gets them hooked then jacks up the price

ewwhite

@JoelESalas slowly

Mark Henderson

@ewwhite do you resell vSphere?

Even the vmware retail price for essentials+ is $5500 when I use a VPN to the US

(which is still $3k cheaper mind you)

ewwhite

@MarkHenderson yes

Mark Henderson

@ewwhite Ok. Next time I need one I am going to ask you for a quote

Probably after easter

Joel E Salas

@MarkHenderson Don't do it unless you have the money in your pocket

or else you'll never hear the end of it @ewwhite

Mark Henderson

12:56 AM

I usually buy mine through Dell

@JoelESalas I never do

We pay immediately

Wesley

@ewwhite Interesting. Interesting. $750 next quarter? =P

ewwhite

@JoelESalas You made me lose out on a big sale and an opportunity.

Joel E Salas

@ewwhite opportunity cost? :(

ewwhite

@JoelESalas I won't be able to afford my wife's boob job now.

2

Joel E Salas

@ewwhite Now I actually feel bad

ewwhite

12:59 AM

@JoelESalas BREAST REDUCTION!

(insurance isn't as likely to cover it... versus enhancement)

Joel E Salas

ewwhite

@JoelESalas but yes, your firm did me wrong.

This image stays roughly in sync with the day (assuming the Earth continues spinning). Shortcut: xkcd.com/now

is that correct, @MarkHenderson?

Shane Madden

1:15 AM

I wonder if he's just got a ton of varieties of the image on his server and it's selecting the correct one, or actually rendering the combined image on demand

Mark Henderson

@ewwhite Ehh it's a bit off

The bars are correct but the country is in the wrong spot

So yes it's midday here, I've just come back from lunch and most Autralian cities are having lunch right now, except for Brisbane because they live in the 1700s and don't do daylight savings

jscott

@ShaneMadden He's loading the files from else where: imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/13h30m.png

Mark Henderson

@ShaneMadden If it's anything like the epic animation he did, it's all pre-rendered and selected

jscott

setInterval(function(){document.getElementById('comic_now').src="http://c.xkcd.com/redirect/comic/now";}, 30000);

ewwhite

so XKCD guy is really a geek

Anonymous

1:27 AM

@ewwhite is that news?

ewwhite

nah

jscott

The images are in 15 minute increments 08:00, 08:15

Zoredache

1:42 AM

does anyone know of an on-line faxing service that will let me abuse the hell out of someone?

Journeyman Geek

hm. no hits for "online black fax service"

Zoredache

There is a particular spammer, that will just not fucking stop. But their DNS registration information appears to legit, and have a valid fax number. I want to send them a fax of every fricken spam they have send me (~500 a day for the last month).

Mark Henderson

That's pretty hard core

500 a day

Zoredache

well one-per mailbox.

Mark Henderson

ah

So are you going to send them 500 copies of each spam? ;)

Zoredache

1:45 AM

Yes.

Mark Henderson

And how much are you willing to pay?

Zoredache

That is if I can find a way that will have no cost to me.

$0/not much.

Mark Henderson

Plenty of online fax services

3,000 faxes for 150 euros

popfax.com/Send%20fax%20subs.html

Shane Madden

Kinda figure there's got to be a free one, due to traffic pumping - same reason there's all those free conference call services.

Mark Henderson

Their sales pitch is:

> Nearly 100% of companies are equipped with fax machines, which makes fax mailing a universal B2B direct marketing resource, and potentially the most efficient! About 98 % of faxes received are read, there are no anti-spam filters. You can use fax mailings to broadcast information to your existing clients (newsletters, launches of new features, surveys, etc) or to search for new potential clients (by running of a seasonal promotion, for example).

Zoredache

1:49 AM

@MarkHenderson What I don't get is why the heck Microsoft hasn't filtered them yet. We are using FOPE for filtering...

Mark Henderson

Emphasis mine

They are basically a fax spamming company

Zoredache

I have submitted the messages to their abuse address every single day.

Mark Henderson

Also bullshit that almost 100% of companies have a fax, I know of almost none that do

Journeyman Geek

@Zoredache: If you do, send it in negative

2

Zoredache

@JourneymanGeek what?

Journeyman Geek

1:50 AM

@Zoredache: compression means its not much bigger, and if they use a physical fax machine... ;p

jscott

@Zoredache Black background, white text.

Zoredache

Oh, I see.

Shane Madden

Will It Blend's much less interesting cousin, Will It vMotion?

Tweeted by shanemadden on February 26, 2014 at 6:43 AM

That has been my week.

Journeyman Geek

Black fax

The term black fax refers to a prank fax transmission, consisting of one or more pages entirely filled with a uniform black tone. The sender's intention is typically to consume as much of the recipient's fax ink, toner, or thermal paper as possible, thus costing the recipient money and/or denying the recipient the use of their machine (this is similar to computer-based denial of service attacks). This is made easier because the fax transmission protocols compress the solid black image very well, so a very short fax call can produce many pages. Black faxes have been used to harass large ...

or just this

Zoredache

Sorry, I thought you were talking about the MS FOPE submission process. I was trying to figure out how I can send an abuse complaint in the negative.

Anonymous

1:55 AM

@Zoredache if you can't find free black fax services then just ddos them to death >:)

Zoredache

got a botnet I can borrow?

Anonymous

uhm i know someone who may... but he ain't trustworthy at all so i wouldn't engage with him lol

Mark Henderson

@PatoSáinz I'd say that anyone who controls a botnet is untrustworthy by definition

Anonymous

@MarkHenderson i know a couple of them who are trustworthy... mostly moral fighters

Mark Henderson

Oh that reminds me

Zoredache

1:59 AM

Anyway the targets shall be smartsourceonline.com, localtoyotadealers.com, chryslerlocaldealers.com.

Mark Henderson

I have an invite to a scene torrent site

Who wants?

I got mine from Lucas Kauffman

Finally earned enough seed ratio to get some more invites

Journeyman Geek

ugh. printers

Anonymous

@MarkHenderson scene torrent site?

Anonymous

you mean private tracker?

Mark Henderson

@PatoSáinz Correct

sceneaccess.eu

Anonymous

2:00 AM

@Zoredache you could 133 h4x them

Mark Henderson

Basically always runs at max speed. Lots and lots of seedboxes on it

Grab it seconds after pre and it's already doing 8MB/sec

Anonymous

@MarkHenderson welp no thanks but i'm sure somebody here might want

Zoredache

@PatoSáinz not me...

So am I missing something obvious. Is there an easy powershell equivalent to the $* bash variable.

Mark Henderson

@Zoredache What does $* do?

(I'm not even going to try to google it)

nvm

28

Q: What is $* and $# in Linux?

What do the following environment variables in Linux mean? What is $* (dollar sign followed by an asterisk)? What is $# (dollar sign next to a hash mark/number sign/octothorpe/pound sign)?

$args.join(" ")?

Zoredache

2:21 AM

Method invocation failed because [System.String] does not contain a method named 'Join'

But that looked promising.

Mark Henderson

$args should be an array

Lemme bust out the ISE

Zoredache

it looks like an array if I do a get-variable -name args. But I must be missing something, since it doesn't seem like I can join it like an array.

Mark Henderson

So close!

@Zoredache $args -Join " "

Only works with string params

Parameters like 1,2,3 get converted into an array and it joins the objects, not as strings

Zoredache

ah ha, that seems to do it...

Mark Henderson

Powershell is weird like that; join is a method, but it's not invoked like one

It's used the same way as they use -gt and -eq

Zoredache

2:31 AM

Everyone keeps saying how consistent powershell is. The commandlets naming are nice, but some of the syntax quirks drive me insane.

jscott

-Join is an operator in Powershell. I'm guessing because .Join(...) is a static method on System.String in .NET. If you compare the String class to [string] $a | Get-Member, you'll note the PS methods are only the Public Methods available on the String class.

Michael Hampton

@Zoredache It's only internally consistent.

And don't get me wrong, PowerShell is a dramatic improvement over what came before. But for the love of Gawd, Microsoft, replace the terminal it runs in with something less than 30 years old!

jscott

@MichaelHampton I'd settle for less than 10. I also use a lot of cmd.exe still.

Zoredache

A seemingly simple improvement I would live is for copy&paste to not be so insanely stupid. I don't want to copy a rectangular region. I want to copy my command that happens to span lines without also having to copy the shell prompt.

Michael Hampton

@jscott Ha. The only thing they've changed in that window since FUCKING WINDOWS NT is the color.

jscott

2:42 AM

@mdmarra: "does not automatically disable any local accounts" -- only if there is not Group Policy in place to disable built-ins, change their passwords, etc, etc.

@Zoredache I swear... swear I once found, years ago, a reg value to alter the selection from "box" to "line". I've since been unable to re-find this, thus I am convinced it was a dream following too much reading of The Old New Thing.

Zoredache

@jscott I suspect you just had putty open or something.

It has an option like that.

Michael Hampton

PuTTY is actually relatively sensible with copy and paste.

jscott

@Zoredache Almost certainly at this point. :) I have this hazy, but back-filled memory, that the page describing the option something similar to "change the selection to by line, rather than whatever that selection mode is" in a mildly humorous/serious tone.

Michael Hampton

I'm at the point now where I'd almost rather ssh from my Linux desktop into Windows whenever I have to use PowerShell.

Mark Henderson

@Zoredache I'm constantly copying that square, pasting it into notepad, and deleting the line breaks

And the prompt

jscott

2:53 AM

@MichaelHampton You can do it via https.

Michael Hampton

@jscott So I have to bring in IIS, too, just to use a bloody shell?

jscott

@MichaelHampton Once you go MS, you never go nginx.