The Comms Room

7:28 AM

morning

8:01 AM

G'day

pauska

8:34 AM

heh

our business bank requires SSL 3.0

nice.

@pauska read your gmail

dawud

9:07 AM

heya

:)

so last night I found out about the Office Customization Tool and .msp files, which is quite neat.

don't do it...

ffs

Navaneeth

if some one knows.. please answe

:18413918 1) you're on chat for server fault. 2) dropping in and posting a link to a questions is incredibly rude

dawud

@Navaneeth I think you can try that yourself and check the HTTP return code very easily

9:19 AM

3) enjoy your chat ban.

@tombull89 Interesting - what can you really customize though?

@cole it's a bit more user-friendly than doing a config.xml. Silent install, add license key, set security settings, configure outlook (if needed) add/remove registry settings, add/remove files.

@tombull89 oh that's actually pretty cool.

I'm trying to make an "ultimate deployment script" for my machines at home (which I seem to be re-installing a lot at the moment), and that's one thing I've learned about it.

I kind of want to install Windows 10 on my home PC.

9:29 AM

@cole As a primary? :O

That's why I've been re-installing so many times :P I bought an SSD for my HPTC, so re-installed Win 7 on that, then went to try the Win 10 preview. Worked fine for a few days before an update stopped a lot of things working that were fine before, so last night I went back to Wn 7.

@Bob yar.

Windows 7 is staying on my gaming desktop tho.

@cole Proooooobably not the best idea.

@tombull89 I run Win 8.1.

I feel so derpy when I try to use Win7 now.

So used to hitting Windows key + typing to search

9:30 AM

@cole ...I do that on Win7

@Bob doesn't feel the same

I kept getting confused with 8.1 > 10 - shut down is in a completely different place.

I did that on Win7, heck, WinVista, since before the 8 release

@tombull89 is it?

8's start menu search was a bitch

9:31 AM

Wonder if any companies will migrate to 10

apps and settings separate

@cole Yeah, in the start menu rather than the charms bar.

at least 8.1 fixed it

@Bob yeah 8.1 is much better

@cole From XP or from 7? :P

9:32 AM

I still don't want the metro apps though - Health and Fitness, Camera, contacts, etc.

@tombull89 It's in the start screen on 8.1

@Bob we have more 7 than XP - so that's a plus.

We still have a couple XPs

...which will hopefully be replaced within the next few weeks

We have at least 1500.

We have 10. 9 Digital signage screens, and one that houses the BMS (Building management system).

9:37 AM

Anyone else see this? answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/…

@cole wat

@cole lel

brb registering "rollup" on SE.

I loled

I'm revising my opinion of MS Answers being better than Yahoo.

HNGG 19 days till my birthday.

9:43 AM

housemate's 25th tomorrow...she (we're) having some friends over

I'll be 28. :(

Hoping a new job will be my early birthday gift :D

I'm the eldest in my house :(

for tel lulz I downloaded Tindr this week...I've seen probably half a dozen girls I know on there.

Michael Hampton

What is Tindr?

It's probably the most shallow dating app in existance. You're given a photo, a name, an age, and you swipe right if you like them, and left if not. If you both swipe right you get a match and told about it.

@tombull89 at least my girlfriend is older than me (she'll be 30 in June :P)

9:52 AM

@cole but what are you doing up at this hour?

@JennyD woke up at 4:30 and was wide awake.

Decided to just get up.

@cole I hate it when that happens. Which is extremely rarely, for me.

I've just given lots of people cake here because it's my last day at this client

wait, you're leaving and you give the cake?

I had an internal auditor make me a dinosaur cake (3D - too!) when I left a job.

@tombull89 I'm a consultant, it's tax deductible

it's tradition that if you're employed then the company gives you cake when you leave (unless fired for cause, natch) but if you're a consultant then you need to bribe them so they want to pay you again

9:55 AM

I guess it's good, I'm just reading and watching some YouTube videos

s/sul/slu/

@Iain right, thank you...

:)

now I just need to add some POD to the script + module I just checked in, and then I can go home and be gainfully unemployed until Monday

@JennyD hooray!

10:36 AM

aw man, I hate when I miss like 2-3 hairs when shaving my face

@cole i know that feel...it's typically when I get to work, sit down, and at some point I rub my face and feel some hairs. Typically right under mah nose.

@tombull89 luckily I'm still home - I just rubbed my cheek and felt some.

Spent quite a bit of time trimming my crazy and unruly goatee this morning though.

I should really keep a small electirc razor in my bag/car

I think a lot of our staff are doing Movember

I want to but I have two interview next week

so I'll have to start a week late. I have yet to let my facial hair grow (aside from my goatee) for longer than 3-4 days

my hair needs another trim...when it gets too long it goes behind the arms of my glasses and then flicks up weirdly

luckily one of my friends runs/owns a hairdressers/barbershop, so that'll do for that :D

Intel will fork over fifteen whole dollars to folks who feel that it misrepresented the performance of Pentium 4 CPUs released way back in the year 2000. - don't spend it all at once, guys.

10:44 AM

Just got my haircut yesterday too. I usually get it cut every 11 days or so.

@tombull89 ha

eleven days?! more like eleven weeks for me.

@tombull89 I wear my hair extremely short (skin fade) - and my hair grows at an insane rate.

This is how short I cut it: i.imgur.com/BPyvt3Y.jpg

ooh that is quit short

whereas mine's just a mess.

you can see the little flick it does...

haha yeah - my hair is a pain to cut - even my barber said it's one of the most difficult he's dealt with.

pauska

11:01 AM

HTTP server signature Lotus-Domino

this might explain why my bank only supports SSL 3.0.. not even TLS 1.0

LOL

11:42 AM

you need to set up an anonymouse security object anonymouse? squeak squeak?

and of all the lines on Technet comments, May your carrots grow deep and the sun shine on you forever. Thanks. was not expected.

@tombull89 I vaguely remember someone using that as their Usenet name back in the days

12:09 PM

@TheCleaner glad to hear you got it running, I'm not a big fan of Crystal Reports, or a small fan for that matter.

So, did anybody splurge for a FireTV Stick?

12:44 PM

@BigHomie yep I ordered one...prime $20

I honestly don't need it...all the TVs are smart tv's (first world problems)

but hey...$20. I might give it as a Christmas present.

to save me going to look, what are they ?

Bit like a Chromecast, I think?

Turns your dumb TV into a smart TV.

correct...same as chromecast

but with some amazony goodness like games, etc.

@MichaelHampton I had a Tinder interview!

Hm, that was interesting. Apparently, if you use runas and run explorer as a different user after killing the initial one, you "log in" as that user without ever leaving the original user's context

(This is on XP, though...)

I had to make some admin changes without logging out the existing user since I don't have their password ...nifty tricks lol

Q: How can I complain against someone using evidence obtained from an unethical source?

1:05 PM

So the IT-fail-of-the-day isn't from ServerFault today...

7

A part of my IT job I take upon myself is to sieve through outgoing employee emails to remove confidential and personal information before handing over the account to the succeeding person. One fateful occasion, I found a strange email in the inbox with salary information that was sent from empl...

"I was snooping through HR's emails, and I found that they have salary information on employees!!!! How do I tattle?"

@JourneymanGeek as you're in the same location as the OP, opinions?

Our IT director left yesterday ...change ALL the passwords!

...and hopefully not break anything in the process.

mossy

kinda cool eh?

also, too early for life

@HopelessN00b Ouch.

@NathanC That sounds like it could backfire spectacularly at some point.

@TheCleaner Can you halp me with Exchange retention policies?

1:17 PM

@Bob Indeed. It was just a curious thought.

Sorta like obtaining SYSTEM privileges by abusing the task scheduler.

@NathanC Didn't they fix that after XP?

@Bob Yeah.

Scheduler can't run stuff interactively now, IIRC.

It's still possible using psexecwith the /s flag

but you need admin with that anyway

The new way (if you can't use PsExec) is to replace one of the accessibility tools.

If you replace Narrator with cmd and run it on the lock screen, boom, interactive cmd running as SYSTEM.

I've seen full explorer instances started like that. It uses the default profile.

And of course you need either write privileges to system directories, or hardware access (which implies the former).

1:21 PM

@ewwhite yeah, what's up?

@Bob Ah, that's pretty handy

Of course, you already need admin access to replace the tool, so...

@NathanC I can't remember - did the tasksched method work without admin in a default home setup?

@TheCleaner I've never used them. But I probably should?

I want a 2-week deleted items purge policy

@Bob No, you need to be admin

afaik

@NathanC Oh good.

1:25 PM

@ewwhite Exchange 2013?

This would be for 2010 for now.

I'm reading up on how to do the same for 2013

@TheCleaner when is your expected delivery date?

Lol

@BigHomie Jan 5th...I ordered on the 2nd day

@ewwhite You can follow this guide: ibenna.wordpress.com/2013/02/04/… it's pretty straightforward. Just follow the section: "“Clear Deleted Items” Policy Tag" -- you just need an RPT for deleted items folder

RPT?

retention policy tag

"Retention Policy Tags (RPTs), which are retention tags with a delete action, created for default folders such as Inbox and Deleted Items. Not all default folders are supported. Notably, Calendar, Tasks and Contacts folders aren’t supported"

1:31 PM

I copied the 2-month I saw in the EMC

should it be permanently delete or allow recovery?

I would set it to allow recovery...which means they can choose "Recover Deleted Items" which 95% of users don't know exists anyway.

You can use Permanently Delete if you are after quick storage recovery...but Allow Recovery would still use whatever Dumpster retention is in place (default 14 days)...so after 14 days of an item getting "deleted" from their deleted items that space would be recoverable on the server.

@TheCleaner but I can only have one policy applied to mailboxes?

@ewwhite For items in the Deleted Items folder you mean? Yes, as far as I know you can only have a single RPT per mailbox. You can assign different mailboxes to different policies, but you can't have multiple policies trying to do the same thing on the same mailbox.

How do I assign to all mailboxes?

Journeyman Geek

@tombull89 Oh dear god no.

Also, thankfully NOT from my neck of the woods ;p

1:47 PM

@ewwhite Get-Mailbox -Resultsize unlimited | Set-Mailbox -RetentionPolicy "Ed wants your deleted items gone"

Any new mailboxes will have to be manually set to it though. Man, I need to create an Exchange VM...I'm forgetting commands now that we are on O365.

Doing that means it needs to be scripted

Get-Mailbox -Resultsize unlimited | Set-Mailbox -RetentionPolicy "My Policy"

that applies to the mailboxes in place TODAY

Yeah...you can script if you want and schedule it.

my first thought wouldn't be that it would need to be scheduled

Exchange should be smarter than that

Or follow this one: blogs.technet.com/b/hot/archive/2012/04/26/…

I know it says O365 but you get the idea.

@ewwhite Yeah, should be, but isn't.

1:50 PM

how often do these things get evaluated?

When you create the retention policy in the EMC you can apply it to all mailboxes there instead of PS as well...

I don't understand what all of these Tags are for

@ewwhite Well, look at them.. they all do differnet things, or apply to different folders.

Delete and allow recovery or permanently delete, and then which folder it applies to.

@ewwhite here mate: technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/…

OH... I may have just convinced my billion-dollar-a-year corporate overlords to spend <$45/user to let us use Exchange archiving, so we don't have to deal with restoring 23 GB PST files anymore.

That's depressing, actually, now that I see it in writing.

1:59 PM

This is why I so love Litigation Hold and eDiscovery.

I was just turned down for archiving. It would have saved us millions of dollars in netbackup licensing alone

Wow.

Yeah, executive arithmetic never ceases to amaze.

Journeyman Geek

Management types do wierd arithmetic, trust me.

Just looking at the Steam Halloween Sale. Organ Trail: Director's Cut - nice, didn't know that was on St...wait, what? Organ Trail?

2:12 PM

LOL

2:28 PM

@NathanC Why aren't "ALL the passwords" piles of random goop so that nobody could easily memorize them?

@tombull89 I just tried League of Legends for the first time last night.. seems fun, sorta...

@ChrisS Because how are you gonna log into stuff without being able to remember the password?

Goatmale

Organ Trail is awesome.

@NathanC KeePass - or whatever password management program you prefer...

Quite a few of our service account passwords and whatever else are 32 to 48 characters of goop.

@ChrisS is keepass the "online" one, or the "offline" one that you have to carry your database around with you?

The program is offline, but you can keep the DB just about anywhere.

Is a Windows program, but they're sensitive to make sure it runs under Mono. I can attest to how weird it is to have a Windows program running on FreeBSD like nothing's wrong.

We just switched to "new" tax software. The "new" software's update system "Calls" home (complete with modem connection options) to get updates. =/

2:43 PM

@TheCleaner Wow, mine is Dec. 24th, I thought you might have gotten it sooner by chance, I was going to ask you to let me know how it worked out, I mainly want it for Plex, we have no Rokus/similar on any of the TVs, closest thing is the blu ray player which has netflix/amazon prime etc, and it picks up plex via upnp I think, so it's a very basic plex client

If it works out we might grab some Fires, we'll see

And "No Updates Available" followed by "Applying XXX version ##.#.# product updates"

4

there has to be an easier way....

that's awesome

@ChrisS I suppose, but AD passwords and sorts like that can't be stored like that

Why does anyone have access to any AD passwords besides their own? Or do you allow service accounts interactive login?

@NathanC Huh? I have hundreds of AD passwords in KeePass, with my corporate overlords being too cheap to buy real password/identity management software.

2:53 PM

@ChrisS "Administrator" account, for example. Plus, access to tools he had registered (vmware's site, teamviewer, etc)

Plus any other administrative account that was created

don't ask me why there's more than one...wasn't my doing, lol

I don't even know the "admin" account's password.

@ChrisS Well, local admins, 5 different domains/forests, plus our audtiors expcet us to change all the passwords every 90 days... so, we gotta update the scripts and configs such... need to know what the password on those service accounts actually are, at the very least.

@NathanC Yeah, not to mention shit like vCenter wants/needs its own password for SSO.

@HopelessN00b Yeah, but I could tell you a service account password here, wouldn't do you any good as it can't login interactively... I'm sure there's some attack that someone could think up, but it ain't going to be easy, and you'll probably be limited to something mundane.

@ChrisS Right, same here, but we still have to know what it is in order to have whatever automated process use it, which we have to update every 90 days.

Sure, just saying, not a big deal..

Q: Should a 5 year old excuse themselves after farting?

2:57 PM

10

My five years old daughter sometime farts silently, and she doesn't excuse herself. Every time I detect such a situation, I remind her that she should try to avoid it and leave the room, going to a toilet, but if she fails to do that, she should excuse herself. My wife says this is wrong. She cl...

pre-schooler discipline etiquette

Yeah, I gave up that particular fight with our auditors years ago. Evidently, if we only audited stuff that mattered, they'd be out of a job.

> Every time I detect such a situation...

@BigHomie Sounds like they ought to change her diet, if it's a "detectable" problem more than occasionally.

As far as I know, the only passwords that would get you anywhere trying to get into our systems from the outside world are "normal" user account passwords. And nobody knows any of those except their own. Service accounts can't login to any of the external-facing services - you might be able to combine those credentials with some other attack to be able to do something (maybe?)... but why?

@ChrisS Well, it's a potential attack vector, and one that's generally ignored. Not many places enforce strong passwords or password aging on their service accounts, so it's generally easier to crack one of those, than say, a domain admin. And if you have a specific target in mind (like our payroll backups, for example), a service account password would get you as far as a domain admin password would for that specific target.

3:03 PM

@BigHomie Keep in mind that 5 yo kids still have issues distinguishing memories from imagination; they may think they did say "excuse me" or whatever, even if they only imagined it. This phenomenon leads to kids of this age "lying" a lot (air quotes as the kid genuinely believes their telling the truth, though they aren't).

nah @ChrisS, she knew what she was doin ><

@HopelessN00b Ok, and when the payroll account goes empty, a week after someone in IT ragequit, who's door are the police going to be knocking on? (Actually, after a ragequit would be the perfect opportunity to frame that employee)

@BigHomie that happens too

@ChrisS Right, but that's a separate, largely unavoidable problem. Even if you and your organize have your shit setup properly, the cops and the courts don't understand anything more complex than "A, therefore B", so the ex-IT guy's gonna have legal issues, regardless.

@ChrisS I'm actually realizing now it's more of a culture thing, as the top answer from another country suggests in China letting one rip in public is common practice, didn't know that, and I teach my kids to say excuse me whenever I catch them dropping one

@BigHomie Not culture so much as environment. When you're surrounded by unpleasant smells from other people and things anyway, a fart isn't such a big deal... or something you'd even necessarily notice. In the West, for the most part, we're pretty particular about avoiding unpleasant odors.. either smelling them, or giving them off.

3:09 PM

@BigHomie Differences in Easter and Western culture are fascinating.. Was watching a video series on Youtube last year about it. In "lower" Eastern Culture I'm sure farting without warning would be acceptable, as is the case with many behaviors we'd find rude. OTOH, the "high" culture you would excuse yourself from the room and do that somewhere else.

@HopelessN00b good point

@HopelessN00b Also more true in the US. Most cities in Europe don't smell very pleasant.

@ChrisS Yeah, for that matter, those high and low culture differences you see in the East these days are very similar to the ones you saw in the West hundreds of years ago, before we had the technology to afford virtually everyone hygiene and odor-free living.

@ChrisS Very true. Venice looks beautiful, but it smells like what it is.. an open sewer.

indeed...my dad was never very impressed when I announced "Fire in the hole" before letting one go.

3

sigh...visual studio, why do you hate me so

Error 176 error LNK1104: cannot open file 'LIBC.lib'

thanks for the tip!

3:23 PM

@BigHomie yeah, it might get here sooner...we'll see. I should've ordered it the first day but I was lazy

3:40 PM

I'm going postal on the next programmer I catch using spaces instead of tabs...

4:10 PM

Anyone here a big Cisco networking user?

@TheCleaner In what context? We have a lot of Cisco gear, and I do support it a fair bit.

@HopelessN00b I'm just tired of guessing and going through release notes to find the "recommended" IOS version for a particular switch. It pisses me off there isn't a "here's what we recommend you run but here are other choices" option. Instead I've got to decide between 15.2.2E(ED) and 15.0.2E7(MD) and 12.2.55-EX3(ED)...know what each of those consists of and then make a decision. It's a PITA. Yeah I could go with "the firmware we have on it works fine" but management...

would like to see us actually updating firmware from time to time. :)

The fact that the Cisco Feature Navigator site even exists shows that IOS is a giant convoluted mess.

@TheCleaner Oh, yeah. Can't help you much there. I generally just go with which branch(es) has the crypto options we use, and then apply the newest one... after reading the release notes to make sure there aren't any known issues I care about.

@ewwhite I forwarded your email

@Basil I see!

4:21 PM

He's a francophone, but works in english

thank you

any time

4:48 PM

@ewwhite What do you use slack to do?

5:04 PM

@Basil come see...

kce

5:17 PM

EJECTING FROM CHAT. GOING TO SLACK!

(Sound FX)

Michael Hampton

5:34 PM

@Basil What do you think of this?

Another reason to love outsourcing.

This is a case of outsourced hardware management. So they are claiming that the files must have been created with the NULLs. — Arthur 3 hours ago

A: Windows 2008 files corrupted with Nulls starting on 64K boundries

0

A few things I'd investigate would be: Does your storage do zero page reclamation? If so, what size chunks do they work with? Does that line up with the damage? Not a smoking gun, but a definite clue. Is the server a VM? What's the hypervisor? What are the settings for the virtual disk? Do you ...

how do I link to SF Chat in a question?

Dennis Kaarsemaker

@ewwhite just the permalink of a message? chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/18422076#18422076

Q: ADSL2 10mb vs Fiber 10/10mb

-1

We have an office near the West Loop of Chicago where our only options for Broadband service is currently ATT. Recently, we were given the option of upgrading our ADSL2 10mb connection to Fibre 10mb/10mb. The price of our current business level ADSL is around $70/mo - fiber is $600/mo. Without k...

networking fiber broadband

and Ih have a handful of clients in that part of Chicago... so there are some unique issues with ISPs there.

Specifically, this building blocking the line of sight to the Sears Tower...

Merchandise Mart

The Merchandise Mart (or the Merch Mart, or the Mart) is a commercial building located in the Near North Side of Chicago, Illinois, United States. When it opened in 1930 it was the largest building in the world, with 4,000,000 square feet (372,000 m2) of floor space. Built by Marshall Field & Co. and later owned for over half a century by the Kennedy family, the Mart centralized Chicago's wholesale goods business by consolidating architectural and interior design vendors and trades under a single roof. It has since become home to several other enterprises, including the Shops at the Mart, the Chicago...

7:48 PM

@ewwhite Was that the start of the ghetto's when sears left?

2 hours on a friday w/ no comments, in the middle of an American workday? Wow, everybody really is going to slack.

we're testing it, essentially

so far, it has a few things that are nicer than here, but it's missing a few

heh, can you fill up star wall?

@RyJones Got a link?

Ry Jones

yup

you already have a pending invite

Sweet. I got invited. I feel special.

damnit bank of america -_-

they placed a fraud hold on my card >_>

8:02 PM

@NathanC So now you have to call them and explain that the stripclub charges really were you?

@freiheit Ha.

Nah, just had to go online and tell them that yes, I authorized the AT&T charge...

@NathanC Oh I've had it way worse than you. ATM sucked up my debit cards, wife is on her 3rd debit card in a month b/c of Dairy Queen hacks, and My cc was hacked earlier this month

Dennis Kaarsemaker

@JourneymanGeek I haven't used it yet, you can have it if you want

8:19 PM

@skyhawk Email me at nonapeptide@gmail.com if you feel so inclined. Want to ask you something.

jscott

@Wesley Y U Slackchat no load? I was able to register but the site won't load on this notebook or my phone.

Maybe I should contact my System Administrator for help.

4

8:50 PM

@jscott Huh, dunno

So we saw you join

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Are you behind some kind of weird firewall blocking slack?

@NathanC You around?

@HopelessN00b I got you.

Sweet, thanks.

9:21 PM

@Wesley ?

I think my CPUs are a little...hot.

medium.com/@insync/…

9:37 PM

@freiheit I think you're posting in the wrong forum.

Zoredache

Why do you think that? It was an interesting read.

@Zoredache Pretty sure Ed meant that he should be posting it over on Slack.

Zoredache

10:04 PM

ah right. What is that about anyway. Why is that better then here?

I'm still not convinced that it is, but it seems like a lot/most of the regulars and old guard around here are just fed up with SF/SE and the fail, so they're trying something else.

It's highly decent, I just don't see a way for the community to survive without a mechanism for new blood to come in from time to time... which this place has, but Slack does not. Time will tell, I suppose.

@HopelessN00b Slack is just the platform around which a community can be built

There are potentials for new blood, but I would prefer to see if we can keep interest past the first few weeks.

I'm surprised at the rapid uptake though.

I had some informal goals, the third being 30 signups and we hit that right quick. People seem to love the mobile / tablet apps

Yeah, me too. More sick-of-ServerFault than I figured... and I figured on a lot.

Next goal I'm informally making is to see if we can sustain a good amount of activity for a few weeks. Then on to 50 people

At that point I think we can start to consider some option for self sustainment.

We've already got one not-ServerFaulter joined.

Well, someone has a plan... that bodes well. Certainly better than the other .. um community-transplants ... I've experienced.

10:34 PM

@ewwhite I read it as "How we DevOoopsed ourself into losing a bunch of money", which I thought might be interesting to sysadmins...

@freiheit (post it on Slack)

@ewwhite Do I have to create another freaking social-ish website account for that?

you've been invited

@freiheit Nope, not really. Not like that anyway. I sent you an invite.

@jscott What's the deal, still can't load?

10:49 PM

no

Man, that guy.

11:05 PM

our desktop support guy quit today. Now it's only me and a contractor. Fantastic.

@faker do'h

that's going to be interesting. If my boss tells me I have to do desktop support he can start looking for one more admin

@faker I do pretty much everything...just me and the other admin who does more of the manufacturing IT side of things

@NathanC I was hired as a senior Linux admin to run the place together with another full time senior Linux and the desktop guy

the Linux admin quit a while ago (and after a long fight I got the consultant temporary) and now the desktop guy leaves

oh boy...

11:13 PM

the consultants contract ends in March. I wanted to talk to my boss on Monday about that. But now...

Hopefully a replacement is found soon

IF we hire one. The company is going down and nobody wants to admit it

Writing on the wall but people erase it :p

I should just quit too. Get it over with

@faker Line up another job first, obviously heh

11:56 PM

Man, this is where you leverage things into MORE money!