The Comms Room

1). I don't know anything about ThinPC. 2). Does it make sense? 3). We need to revise their domain setup (Davalan)

1. Neither do I other than it exists, but I'm sure I can figure it out. 2. Makes more sense than buying 100 thin clients, I think. 3. Ok

What's to know? They want an RDS server or servers to replace their XP fleet. I'd like to know what it takes to make ThinPC work.

because I'd assume some domain policy around it...

It's like a thin client OS basically. It's a modified Windows 7 with write filters

Are they an SA customer, though? ThinPC is an SA benefit

10:20 PM

@MDMarra so can they be configured to default to an RDS session

@MDMarra The client has nothing

other than a couple of DCs

If they aren't an SA customer, then ThinPC isn't an option

so whatever licensing is necessary, we can get.

They need whatever licenses they have covered under SA

that will entitle them to ThinPC and other SA benefits

This is basically a greenfield installation

Ryan Ries

@MDMarra Too bad, was looking forward to seeing your sexiness in action

10:22 PM

@RyanRies I have 9 slides right now

I need to stop procrastinating

1.58GB... big

@MDMarra So are you unwilling?

Nope, I'm game

I'm downloading an evaluation

and will see how it runs on my mac

You probably are going to want two RDSH hosts, a session broker, a file server for roaming profiles and folder redirection, and a WDS server to deploy the ThinPC image

I think file server exists... and there's an RDS box that is out there, but never got used.

10:27 PM

You can replace explorer.exe with mstsc.exe in the default shell so that when the user turns the thin client on, it defaults to the RDP session logon already pointing at the connection broker

"You?" You mean I!!

Right

You as in "people"

I'll need VMware access on this one, so that I can test PXE deployment in VMs before we convert the existing workstations. I'll also need to know what model the 100 XP PCs are so that I can include drivers in the ThinPC image

Or does it even make sense to customize the image to just run the terminal emulation application

because some people are warehouse users and just need... well, ~~telnet~~ SSH access

Anonymous

>sending API keys through mail

@ewwhite It wouldnt need to be highly customized, but I'd imagine you want to be able to network boot these PCs for the install, right?

Anonymous

10:30 PM

>sending fresh root password through mail

Anonymous

email is insecure you tards

Anonymous

why do you still send sensitive info through it

@MDMarra that's an option

or just netboot them in general?

Nah, network boot to install

Not network boot to run

@PatoSáinz You have a better option? (Mailing them your .pub is the best thing I can come up with.)

Anonymous

10:33 PM

@84104 two-factor?

Anonymous

like: click this confirmation link in your mail and enter the pin that we sent to your phone to get your root pw in the site

@MDMarra I guess that is an option

Anonymous

dunno, I'm no infosec guy

Anonymous

but there must be a way better than using email which we all know is insecure

@ewwhite What else would you do? Burn 100 install DVDs? :)

10:34 PM

@PatoSáinz SMS, also insecure.

@MDMarra No, just one install DVD.

Anonymous

@84104 yea but you get more layers to break

@ewwhite and do 100 computers one at a time?

Anonymous

a hacker can have a mail server owned, or a SMS mainframe owned

Anonymous

but probably not both

10:34 PM

@MDMarra I'm slow like that.

nice

Anonymous

unless it's the NSA then we are all fucked

@ewwhite so whats the timeline here?

@PatoSáinz Can you change the password once you've logged in? SSH, actually secure. (We think!)

Anonymous

@84104 yea but there's a brief window where your password is the same as the email one

10:35 PM

@MDMarra month or two

Ok

All 2012 R2? :)

@MDMarra I wasn't planning on it... they have 2008.

You need to buy SA for them anyway to use ThinPC

@PatoSáinz It's a vulnerability, but it's not too large of one. DNS hijacking (in this case of MX records) is of some concern, but not that common.

@MDMarra Is there a better way?

10:38 PM

If you really cared about security you wouldn't use a provider that could even send you root passwords.

@ewwhite A better way for what?

@MDMarra of licensing.

Oh. No idea

If you want ThinPC it's only available to SA customers

But I don't know what that means

If you can have one license for one product under SA and be entitled, or if you need everything

No idea

@MDMarra are you telling me I can do this with Ubuntu and a USB key?

2

I don't swim in the murky undercurrents of Microsoft licensing.

@ewwhite You can do it with anything you put your mind to!

10:43 PM

@ewwhite best out of context sentence ever

But everyone should be on SA anyway

You're a fool if you aren't in 2014!

@MDMarra I come from a world where I don't even pay for Redhat!!

@MDMarra licensing is expensive though.

which is why you buy SA

so that you're always entitled to upgrade to the latest edition and you dont pay retail price when you need 2012 R2 for something

but 2003 was around for 20 years!

and XP was around for 25 years!

10:46 PM

@Jacob Which would you rather do? Pay $5k for 2012 datacenter and a few hundred bucks for the SA to get 2012 R2 or pay $5k for 2012 datacenter and then $6.5k for 2012 R2 datacenter when you have to upgrade because you didnt buy SA?

Is a keygen option #3?

Only for your customers!

@MDMarra Umm Linux?

@Jacob Sorry, thought we were having a reasonable discussion

10:47 PM

@MDMarra I mean, I agree, but some businesses can't see that savings.

My ThinPC crashed :(

They only see that they have to spend that money, rather than savings because they can wait to upgrade

Anonymous

because OpenSSL is a huge piece of shit

@PatoSáinz Don't like it? Fix it.

Anonymous

10:50 PM

@Jacob HURR DURR YOU DON'T KNOW ABOUT CRYPTO DON'T TOUCH MY SSL

@PatoSáinz Well then; don't complain.

Anonymous

Also, @Jacob that's the typical opentard excuse for shit software

@Jacob Right, but even when you wait 5 years, SA comes out as a net savings without nickeling and diming for each new server along the way. Anyone that runs Windows Server and is 7:1 or denser when virtualized that doesn't buy Datacenter edition with SA is just doing it wrong. No other consideration

Anonymous

It's evident to any programmer that OpenSSL is a huge, unmaintainable PoS

but my take is that most people don't license every Windows server.

10:51 PM

Well, I can't speak to customers that dont pay what they should

@MDMarra Look at @cole he's still maintaining NT

just what I've seen in the field

Hell XP/2k3 is still widely deployed

By the same idiots that don't buy SA :)

It's a cycle

cole

@MDMarra we're buying SA this year

However, we can't upgrade to 2012/2012 R2 per my manager because the guys on my team may be "overwhelmed" by it

10:54 PM

@PatoSáinz Start linking against GNUTLS or Mozilla NSS. There's probably some other ones, but those are the ones I remember.

Anonymous

@84104 PolarSSL

"Can't afford to pay for new licenses" "No point in upgrading LOB app - we're still on XP" "Can't upgrade to 7/8 because of legacy app anyway"

RobM

they're not going be cured of being overwhelmed by not using it.

"But I don't need 64 bit!"

@ewwhite 2012/2012 R2 RDSHs can do RDP over UDP, by the way

enormous performance improvement

that alone is worth it

10:57 PM

ya!

Or maybe igel.com/products/software/…

@PatoSáinz Why do you come in here

Anonymous

@JoelESalas what

it's a simple question

10:59 PM

►

@ewwhite where do you find this stuff

Anonymous

@JoelESalas pardon?

@MDMarra Oh, I found it on ~~Tucows~~ Spiceworks.

same thing

@ewwhite For all we know you founded MajorGeeks

2

11:02 PM

@JoelESalas What's that?

@PatoSáinz You seem mainly interested in coming in and starting shit... and this is a trolling pattern I've observed with a lot of South American youth on the internet

2

I don't get it, why are you such a trollsome people

@JoelESalas I'm not just the president. I'm a member!

Anonymous

@JoelESalas oh.

@JoelESalas That's major MDMarra to you cadet!

@Jacob rofl

11:04 PM

@JoelESalas So how is it living the devops dream?

@MDMarra I'm just trying to find a happy medium between getting pounded by Windows licenses... and having to use duct-tape, popsicle-sticks and Ubuntu to provide a solution.

@MDMarra pgood, we're working on service discovery stuff

hahahaha

@JoelESalas I didn't get your resume.

@JoelESalas Is that short for pretty?

11:04 PM

@ewwhite got a raiiiise

$_$

@JoelESalas $122,500.50?

@ewwhite rofl what? more or less

+8%

@JoelESalas did you see the MS stuff at Chefcon?

or whatever that gathering of degenerates is called?

Anonymous

@JoelESalas my dearest apologies if you think I'm just a troll--I'm not. It may be that sometimes I rant about something and may or may not spark a conversation. About the pattern you saw, I see what you mean but I can't say why either.

11:06 PM

@MDMarra rofl, I didn't go there

@JoelESalas this guy replaced you.

3

Apparently there are Azure plugins for Chef now, among other things

@ewwhite in your heart?

Anonymous

@ewwhite holy markdown

Ryan Ries

I just watched the Chefcon stuff today

11:07 PM

@RyanRies dude have you played with the Azure Pack?

It's fucking cloud in a can

3

It's my new favorite things that I don't understand.

Ryan Ries

@MDMarra Yep... it's pretty awesome. It's great to see an old giant dust itself off and innovate.

We just set it up in our demo environment and I played with it for about 5 minutes and was hooked

@MDMarra That is by far the best cloud joke I have ever heard.

Now I need to provision my own Azure tenant to play with it

"You cannot star your own messages"

11:09 PM

@MDMarra would I ever need Azure?

why isn't this Stack Exchange priority #1

@JoelESalas I can due to a bug

If you pin a message, it gets +1 star and a pin. Then you can unpin and the star remains

@JoelESalas that was cloudy firm was giving me. I think the $.50 was to fuck with me.

@ewwhite You'd use it as an alternative to AWS

@MDMarra :awesome:

11:10 PM

But there are Microsoft-specific services that are in Azure as well - O365, HVRM, etc

@ewwhite No shit? I figured they'd put you in the 160K+ range

HVRM is like SRM but on crack and better

@JoelESalas Cheap fuckers.

@MDMarra so all the ones that go down like a 2 dollar hooker?

:(

11:11 PM

@JoelESalas have you seen a $2 hooker?!?

I have... and it wasn't pretty :(

@ewwhite You're a true enthusiast

@ewwhite Please put that all on one line to be starred.

@Jacob nuh uh.. wife.

@ewwhite let me do a little research on what we'd need to do for RDS for Davalan and I'll tell you what we need. But is 2012 R2 really not an option?

Because it really should be deployed everywhere at this point

@MDMarra it is an option.

11:12 PM

ok

they will pay.

$$$$$$

I just got my 2012 and 2013 licensing for Philadelphia client

Alright I need to go spend time with my wife before she thinks she's single again

@MDMarra or else... $2 Hooker.

2

@MDMarra I'm going to need you help with them, too

lots of $ this year.

11:13 PM

Let's keep that off of the internet

@JoelESalas also, that was my Q1 so far. Lots of big projects. But clients have not been nice to me at all

I'll page you when I'm going to send the telex over with my thoughts on Davalan

peace out

@MDMarra the one who fired me today is the the one who cloned their DC

4

haha wait

I can hang around for an extra minute to hear this

The client that boned their AD by cloning a DC for Spiceworks FIRED you?

bahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahhahaha

I'm not laughing at you, I'm laughing with you.

Unless you're not laughing, then I am laughing at you.

@MDMarra They asked me to work on something today... I took 30 minutes to respond...

11:15 PM

@MDMarra Sounds like a favor.

they said, "Okay, we'll have someone else do it"

I said, "why?"

Oh, Edmund.

They said, "We asked you 3 times..."

@ewwhite They'll call you again. I guarantee it.

I explained that there was no indication of the priority and that I could handle it at 3pm.

"Forget it... stop working on any projects for us!"

11:16 PM

ha wow

was it anyone I had worked on?

I asked if I should remove my monitoring hooks, Puppet, SSH keys, etc...

no response

@ewwhite They fired you; remove all of it

Were they the ones with 50 email domains?

@Jacob It's a lot of work to re-do when they cool down and change their mind in 15 minutes

@Jacob I wanted confirmation. Be man-enough to address my questions

@MDMarra But that's billable when they want it back.

11:18 PM

On 4/9 - "When you have time can you <do task>?"

@Jacob Knee jerk reactions to angry customers never goes well

@ewwhite These are all small firms though right?

On 4/17 - "Urgent, can you log in and help us with SSL problem"

So I did...

4/18 "Hey, where's <do task>? Is it done yet?"

@JoelESalas $100+ million/year firms

@ewwhite christ

@MDMarra so I left my monitoring and puppet on.

11:20 PM

@JoelESalas No, that one's hundreds of billions.

10 minutes later... the client's entire site goes down

bahahaha

power outage in LA... affected some customers, but everyone else stayed up

so it was an internal thing...

Ok, I've heard enough of this hilarious story. I really need to go remind my wife that she's married.

xoxo <3 everyone

@MDMarra Try the spidermonkey move... with a counter-clockwise swirl.

11:21 PM

on it

peas

@JoelESalas The things I've seen :(

@ewwhite If I'd known you were coming, I would have made it better for you.

@Skyhawk Wife was ill... that ruined most of the trip

@ewwhite Dang, so it was recreational?

@Skyhawk yeah, I don't have clients there.

Only Portland

and my Nexenta reseller is also in Seattle.

11:28 PM

@ewwhite Paul, you mean?

Yep.

Didn't you stop buying Nexenta and start rolling ZFS on Leenooks?

@Skyhawk I did. But that was ZFS on Linux for local storage. For SAN/NAS, I still like a vendor-supported option

so Paul is pushing QuantaStor.

Got it. I'll have to look into that.

@ewwhite when are you in NYC?

11:37 PM

@DanilaLadner Tuesday and Wednesday

getting in Tuesday morning.

oh good. We should meet.

I have plans Tuesday night... and a few things to do around SoHo.

I'm staying in Chelsea.

Flying home Wednesday evening

I need to make a trip to Long Island to work with the HP vendor.

@DanilaLadner Where will you be?

I am in Jersey City, but i go via Manhattan, as i live temp in Brooklyn.

you could either visit us or we could meet in the city.

@DanilaLadner I could possibly come to your Jersey City spot.

or I'll be around after you finish work in the city

whatever works, man.

for you.

11:47 PM

@DanilaLadner K. We can work it out.

Sure.

Will be glad to see you, anyway.

@DanilaLadner want me to visit Jersey City?

Sure, that will be nice too.

I could introduce you to our guys.

We could go for a drink and/or lunch.

K. "Buy hardware from me!!"

:)

oh we will, definitely.

BOFA approved us lease

prob next week or week after

11:51 PM

k. Easy.

well, we'll talk Monday. I'll see how I can work the schedule.