The Comms Room - 2014-09-21

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2:29 AM

@RyJones @faker TIL Oktoberfest begins in late September.

As a beer drinker/brewer I should be ashamed for not knowing.

3:18 AM

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morning!

Journeyman Geek

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lol

Journeyman Geek

3:52 AM

Though, the subtitle should be "Would you like to hear about Spider Jesus?"

4:18 AM

Bonus votes!

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5:00 AM

6

Q: Most efficient RAID configuration with 6 disks?

I have a hand-me-down server that I'm setting up at home and it's got 6 72Gb hard disks (as well as 2 18Gb drives that I'm using for the OS). What is the best way to configure those 6 drives? Should I RAID 5 or 6, or go with something simpler, like mirroring? I'm planning to use it to hold a so...

5:37 AM

dang, ran out of downvotes. hope I killed a shitload of questions

G'day

ahoy matey

It's only just light :(

6:00 AM

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I'm unsure what to make of this

HDMI fax modem sounds cool, though

Journeyman Geek

0_0

1 hour later…

7:29 AM

@jscott don't worry, it's a tourist festival anyway. 10 EUR for 1l beer is outrageous

@faker but they have big boobs

2

Dennis Kaarsemaker

g'morning all

7:46 AM

moin moin

Michael Hampton

No way. I had three hours of sleep and was rudely interrupted by an attack of insomnia.

very rude!

Michael Hampton

At least it wasn't my phone blowing up with alarms... that happened before bed!

8:11 AM

Tree stump 2, Bob 0. Morale is low.

Journeyman Geek

@Bob: FIRE

FIRRRREEEE!

@JourneymanGeek I'm a bit wary of starting a fire next to a flammable porch :P

8:29 AM

@Bob drill a hole through it, pour in that stump dissolver shit, wait a couple years, and hire a crew with a stump grinder to show up and make it go away

@RyJones Heh. It needs to be gone ASAP. I already considered poison.

Fire would've been the easiest solution, if it wasn't for the location.

@Bob well call a stump grinder crew. you're done in an hour or so

Point.

well, that might be an under estimate, it looks like about two hours per stump if what I'm reading is right

Location is a problem again, though.

It's right in the corner between a stone wall, wooden porch and with two other plants next to it on the other sides. Would need to be a rather precise grinder.

8:37 AM

I dunno, these pictures of stump grinders look like basically a long lever arm with what looks like a dado blade setup on the end. probably 8" wide or so

No idea who thought it was a good idea to plant it there. They probably didn't expect it to grow that much.

sunbeltrentals.com/equipment/items/1370/stump-grinders

Hm. Might barely fit.

Meanwhile I'm whacking at (around) it rather ineffectually with a mattock.

sounds like a workout

Doubles as one!

8:49 AM

Morning fellow sysadmins

:p

9:23 AM

Morning Mr Ubuntu

:D

Journeyman Geek

@Bob: sharpened shovel might be useful

or a Entrenching Tool

9:43 AM

Heathens want to remove ex mode from vi

10:32 AM

@JourneymanGeek awhat?

Journeyman Geek

@Bob: sharpened shovel!

@JourneymanGeek showel? shovel?

Journeyman Geek

Digging thing. Yanno, what humans use instead of paws ;p

Oh.

Yea, it's not much use on tree roots.

Journeyman Geek

ninja spellchecks

10:34 AM

@JourneymanGeek Oi modabuse edit!

:P

Journeyman Geek

eh, We used to dig with shitty cheap little vietnam war era designs, and they did surprisingly ok if they weren't beat to hell.

I was going to suggest blasting it out, but OP is already wary of setting it alight, a couple pounds of powder and a stick of dynamite is probably right out

Journeyman Geek

hmm, Maybe a shaped charge?

11:05 AM

O_O

2 hours later…

12:44 PM

-2

Q: Configure DNSMASQ as public dns server?

How do I make dnsmasq reply to queries from internet or act as a open dns relay. I am running Ubuntu 14 and here is my dnsmasq.conf file: no-resolv server=8.8.8.8 server=8.8.4.4 port=53 domain-needed bogus-priv listen-address=127.0.0.1

dns dnsmasq dns-server

surely you must be able to read the documentation

1 hour later…

Michael Hampton

2:06 PM

34

Q: My employer wants me to write a guide for doing my job

I'm on my way out of a company doing tech work for an SMB (Small or Medium-sized Business) and I happen to be the only expert on various parts of the company's operation. I gained this knowledge through a combination of school, training and experience. My boss has now asked me to write a step-b...

management job-change documentation

2:19 PM

...American Sunkist has caffeine in it? o.O

Journeyman Geek

O_O

Michael Hampton

2:35 PM

@Bob It does?

@MichaelHampton Apparently

Michael Hampton

@Bob Oh, right, in Australia it doesn't have caffeine.

@MichaelHampton Which is why it surprised me :P

3:27 PM

4

A: My employer wants me to write a guide for doing my job

While your job is to do what your boss tells you, it is also your duty to perform your tasks state-of-the-art. So writing a HowTo should include who it is intended for, what qualifications the person needs, where he or she needs deeper understanding and why, and what potential risks come with the...

4:02 PM

In the > 20 revisions that were made to this answer after I first created it, it now reads like a man page, in order to comprehend it, you first have to know a lot about cron. When I first wrote it, it was written for newbies who came to this page to learn how to use cron for the first time. That's what made it so popular. Another 20 revisions later, it will read exactly as the cron man page: Technically correct, but incomprehensible to people who don't already know how to use it. If I could delete this and re-write it, I would. Jeff and Joel should take note of this phenomenon. — Eric Leschinski Sep 4 at 12:25

My straight forward and easy to understand jumpstart to using cron was slowly replaced by a clone of the linux cron man page. Exactly the thing that users came to stackoverflow to avoid. Maybe there is a force to keep these things lofty and hard to understand on purpose to keep everyone but only the most dedicated newbies out? — Eric Leschinski Sep 4 at 12:31

Michael Hampton

Yeah, I saw that. Funny part is, I went back and looked at revision 1, and it really isn't much different.

$deity he knows how to whinge - unfortunately his first revision was so full of fail it was embarrasing

@MichaelHampton and the comment bout SO pretty much explains the river of shit

So I fell asleep at my client last night... 2am...

and a roach was crawling on my arm!

It's nasty there

And at another place...

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Michael Hampton

4:20 PM

9600-8-N-1, eh?

The client doesn't want to replace the switch....

"It's rock-solid"

But my main effort this weekend was this...

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Michael Hampton

Looks like fun.

It's become a computer graveyard...

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And it's my fault... technical debt

I mentioned a Supermicro server that a timeclock vendor installed recently...

Dennis Kaarsemaker

Technical debt is best debt.

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And I arrived to find that they didn't know how to rack mount it.

They bolted the front ears of the server to the front rails of the rack... and...

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Michael Hampton

4:25 PM

Er, rails?

They couldn't figure out the rails...

I found them, discarded in a pile of junk in the corner... stripped bolts and all

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Not acceptable

So in 6 hours, I could only handle one part of the room... I moved 800 pounds of equipment by myself to place on a pallet in the warehouse.

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I'm calling the phone vendor to fix that mess.

80% of the cables are for voice...

But I managed to make servers look better.

and fix the supermicro's rails

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Want any gear? It's free!

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Michael Hampton

Is any of that even worth the power bill?

Nope

Some LTO-3 drives in there

but that's about it

a lot of serial gear

And dead APC UPS units

(heavy as shit)

4:57 PM

@ewwhite INTEL Switch?!?! WTF?

5:20 PM

Please to be posting interesting questions on main plz

> I think that the best way to open StickyNotes.snt file is with Microsoft Word. Just right click on the .snt file and then open with Microsoft Word.

Good fucking lord no please god no

I thought we were over this weird fascination with opening every random file in MSOffice programs...

Michael Hampton

5:54 PM

Yay, more sssd bugs.

spam? serverfault.com/a/630175/9517 ? the OPs previous answer pointed to the same ssl site too.

Dennis Kaarsemaker

šṗåm

Michael Hampton

6:16 PM

You already know the answer to the first question. The answer to the second question requires a psychic. — Michael Hampton ♦ 49 secs ago

@MichaelHampton You should amend that to "centuries".

Michael Hampton

@Bob Naaa.. I think we'll have IPv6 pretty much done before we get rid of Windows XP.

@MichaelHampton I can't remember - does XP even do IPv6?

o.O apparently yes... wonder how complete it is

Michael Hampton

3

A: Disable IPv6 address autoconfiguration on Windows XP

Getting an XP box up on my local IPv6 network was... fun. Not. So, in one image, here's the problem: XP's support for IPv6 is minimal at best. I don't believe it's possible to disable stateless autoconfiguration - or even to use anything but. First off, I get my stateless autoconfiguration ju...

It's minimal at best.

Ouch.

Also...

> DNS lookups do not work over IPv6 only

Michael Hampton

6:26 PM

Everything pretty much works from Vista/2008 onwards. But XP is a lost cause.

Well, not all that surprising... it's over a decade old. And people are still actively deploying it.

Michael Hampton

I tossed all my XP media earlier this year. I am very happy to be XP-free...

I have to keep a VM around to test crap like IE7, because someone's still using it for some godforsaken reason.

@MichaelHampton Pretty sure I still have that two-CD XP demo/tour pack in the bottom of a drawer somewhere :P

Michael Hampton

@Bob I was keeping it around for that reason, but I've dropped support as of the EOL date and if you want XP support from me you'd better come with a £5.5m cheque in hand...

If only.

Next year is going to be fun, with 2003 dropping out.

Open season on the remaining internet-connected ones?

7:32 PM

@Bob ooooh yes... this is going to be fun!

$$$

Michael Hampton

Um... Red Hat... Making this subscriber-only is completely useless.

let me reeeeead

oh, that wasn't even worth logging in.

Michael Hampton

@ewwhite Unless you happen to be looking for exactly that information.

ah!

Michael Hampton

7:42 PM

Shh... I let my RHEL subscription lapse

@MichaelHampton oh, here's my account ID/pass!

Michael Hampton

Hm, it must be either Tantalalicious or Roachonmyarm

Naw, more of propped-up-a-SuperMicro-server because-I-don't-have-rack-rails

Last night was so nasty that I ended up going through an entire 10-pack of latex gloves.

3

Michael Hampton

So what did that article say?

Dennis Kaarsemaker

Red Hat Enterprise Linux v. 7 Optional and Supplementary repositories were not available to EC2 clients, but now they are available. To use these repositories update rh-amazon-rhui-client package to latest version

7:57 PM

Resolution

Red Hat Enterprise Linux v. 7 Optional and Supplementary repositories were not available to EC2 clients, but now they are available. To use these repositories update rh-amazon-rhui-client package to latest version

Dennis Kaarsemaker

> For any issues feel free to contact Red Hat Technical Support.

Michael Hampton

Yeah, that's ridiculous.

And yeah, that worked

@ewwhite dude what?

@RyJones Oh... this.

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@ewwhite horrible

8:04 PM

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I spent hours discarding old hardware... And yes, there were the usual roaches and spiders...

but a new one for me... BEETLES!

hence the latex gloves

Dennis Kaarsemaker

I prefer debugging code over debugging buildings...

8:24 PM

This is a huge produce warehouse... and the warehouse portion is considerably cleaner than the office space.

I don't get it

one of them makes money, the other is a cost center

Maybe that makes sense... but this company provides produce to some of the top restaurants in California and Las Vegas.

and if any of those chefs saw the working conditions...

Michael Hampton

@ewwhite That's where the food is.

wait. You said the warehouse is cleaner than what you showed, so what's the issue?

heh, yes.

Michael Hampton

8:31 PM

So the part where the food is, is clean, and the rest of it isn't?

@MichaelHampton he said cleaner, not clean

Yes. The offices are filthy.

the warehouse is immaculate.

Michael Hampton

Maybe you should put the servers out in the warehouse, then.

I have one in the warehouse.

the mirror/failover server.

the building is 4 blocks long.

it's quite a sight

9:24 PM

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saw this as a comment on a photo on facebook...I have no words.

@tombull89 Time to renew your friends list

He's not my friend. Thankfully.

But the english is so bad it gave me cancer.

Michael Hampton

9:49 PM

Someone needs to turn autocorrect back on.

10:35 PM

@RyJones Do you go to Metrix on Wednesday?

Michael Hampton

Hey, I just got called snooty!

@MichaelHampton and because of this snootiness I can't stand the linux community — DebugErr 20 mins ago

@Jacob I have, but not recently. I have to be home at 1900 to give my cat his insulin, so running home to do that makes crossing back to downtown not very attractive

@RyJones Oh that's unfortunate. My coworker has convinced me to go.

@Jacob take a project, or have something in mind you'd like to work on

you'll have fun

@RyJones We're looking at getting a group of people to share colo space to put gear in.

10:44 PM

@MichaelHampton I'm a Windows douchebag and even I hate wizards

99% of installation wizards are "next next next next finish"

The only variation on that is "next next untick "free" offer that is going to install shit, click *decline on the t&c for another shitty offer,no, I don't want the Ask toolbar, finish

@Jacob they have a colo under the stairs at MCS, btw. I have a rack in there.

@RyJones really?

@Jacob yes sir. Where are you thinking of locating? I wouldn't mind 1U in the westin

@RyJones there

My coworker lives in Aspira

@Jacob are we talking about @FalconMomot or some other co-worker?

10:51 PM

@RyJones Falcons involved too, along with another one.

SWN has a half or quarter rack at Westin as well, but it's really old hardware.

@RyJones SWN?

@Jacob looks like the wiki is down, seattlewireless.net which is in the same universe as the usual suspects at MCS

@Jacob NB personaltelco.net/wiki same universe of people

@RyJones hrm

@Jacob anyway, I'm interested in where you end up with pricing compared to AWS

11:00 PM

@RyJones We're working that out now

@RyJones In the mean time. I have to clean and go shopping :(

@Jacob understood

@RyJones Well, it's not a right now thing, but I need to do it this afternoon

11:16 PM

@RyJones Oh I toured downtown yesterday

Sysadmin1138 Expounds

SysAdmin1138 Expounds: The alerting problem

posted on September 21, 2014 by SysAdmin1138

4100 emails. That's the approximate number of alert emails that got auto-deleted while I was away on vacation. That number will rise further before I officially come back from vacation, but it's still a big number. The sad part is,...

@Jacob yeah? see anything interesting?

@RyJones the library

interesting architecture to be sure

@RyJones You up to anything?

11:21 PM

@Jacob not really. Just finished a pizza. what do you have in mind?

@RyJones Well you just consumed a pizza, so there goes the meal idea.

Not sure about anything else, you have an idea?

@Jacob I can go somewhere and be social. I'm sure where ever you have in mind has cokes

actually, nowhere near SODO or downtown right now, there's a football game in progress

looking online, there's two minutes before the end of the game

@RyJones no idea then. Haven't traveled much outside of those areas

Got suggestions?

I wish I hadn't just inhaled a pizza.

@RyJones Sorry? It does sound painful

11:27 PM

well, a meal is a nice thing to do, and the pizza was a default option.

@RyJones Leaving us back to ideas?

@Jacob yeah, I don't know.

Michael Hampton

11:57 PM

@Aaronaught And I've lost count of the number of Windows programs which don't use Windows Installer or something based on it, and are therefore needlessly difficult for IT to manage. — Michael Hampton 17 secs ago

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