Root Access

Canadian Luke

00:00

I'm just thinking from a cost perspective... Most home labs are not built for paying thousands or hundreds on any sort of regular basis, from what I've seen

Are you a student in any way?

bwDraco

Not currently.

DreamSpark is not an option.

Journeyman Geek

rebuilding machines is fun

Bob

> how essential a home lab is

the answer is "not essential at all. not in the slightest."

"not even remotely."

Journeyman Geek

@bwDraco shrug if you're going to rebuild, you can probably just throw eval versions every so often. Home labs are mostly for fun and prototyping tho

and you don't really need/want server hardware at home

bwDraco

Well, I'm hoping to get some hands-on experience with enterprise gear at home.

Journeyman Geek

00:07

Most folks start with a job and contacts for picking up random shit cheap

Bob

lol, not wanting server hardware at home is too true... gotta have really good soundproofing (oh, and how's that power bill?)

VMs are plenty good anyway

(not to mention, in most real environments you're probably dealing with VMs anyway)

bwDraco

@Bob We have a space which can be used for server gear, but when the 50+ dBA from my old Dragon laptop under load is already an issue, I'm not sure this is even a possibility.

Many servers can exceed 70 dBA.

Journeyman Geek

@bwDraco and mostly unnecessary

There's like one feature you need on a low load server

sauce boingboing.net/2017/12/06/a-grumpy-cat-crashes-an-outdoo.html

DavidPostill

00:26

lol

Canadian Luke

For my server, it's on an AMD e350 Mini-ITX motherboard with 4 hard drives. No noise except the PSU and HDDs. Running Linux, a DOS 7 VM (for old-school games), web sites, Samba AD, and mail

You don't need much for a home lab

Also, check out /r/homelabs on Reddit

Bob

my "home" lab is in france :P

Journeyman Geek

;p

@CanadianLuke which is roughly the point I was trying to make

and I'm half certain a lot of home labs use eval versions and/or KMS emulators....

which exist, but is not something we talk about in polite company ;p

Michael Frank

00:44

@Bob I have 3 servers at home... None of them are plugged in cause VRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

Journeyman Geek

@MichaelFrank this was also the point I was trying to make

Michael Frank

My actual homeserver is running on a Dell Optiplex 820 or similar.

Bob

@MichaelFrank yea... same reason I abandoned the cisco switches :P

they looked pretty, but I don't need a jet engine

Michael Frank

My replacement, is going to be a Lenovo M92p

Journeyman Geek

@MichaelFrank that's adorable ;p

Michael Frank

00:53

@JourneymanGeek Yep - But it works for what I need it to do. :)

Journeyman Geek

yup

(and on my linux box, that's literally "I need it to run 24/7 quietly until it dies, not die too often, and cost under a hundred quid a year over its lifetime")

Michael Frank

What I really need to do is figure out a good solution to my storage problem AND then build it into something that will handle streaming media fully.

Bob

@MichaelFrank I 'solved' storage by hooking up half a dozen external HDDs over USB 3.0 :P

the HDDs stack nicely too

bwDraco

I was thinking... HPE ProLiant MicroServer?

Bob

vertical stacking, two | | on top of two = on top of two | |

Michael Frank

01:06

Are those enclosures or just off the shelf externals?

Bob

@MichaelFrank off the shelf

Journeyman Geek

@bwDraco those are actually pretty nice.

Bob

kept things simple - they were cheaper than internals and I didn't have to shuck them

bwDraco

These systems are inexpensive and have all the essentials that make a server a server.

Bob

but I mostly use them for bulk storage

if you needed something low-latency...

Journeyman Geek

01:07

hmm

Bob

there's nothing essential that makes a server a server vs a normal desktop pc, to be honest

bwDraco

AMD Opteron X3000? That's interesting...

Bob

sure, you might want a BMC and dual-PSU, maybe SAS

but you probably wouldn't ever notice in a home environment

@bwDraco ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

bwDraco

Appears to be Excavator.

Bob

@bwDraco It's an APU series.

bwDraco

01:10

Old tech, but serviceable. These are APUs with processor graphics.

Bob

"serviceable" ... they're comparable to a freaking E5540

bwDraco

Not fast by any means, and 1M/2T for the most basic model is probably going to be very limiting in terms of performance.

Bob

scratch that, the high-end X3421 is comparable to a E5540

The X3421 is comparable to ... I don't even know

for reference, you can get two E5540s off ebay for like $20

Journeyman Geek

@Bob

the BMC's the interesting bit

bwDraco

Appears to be based on Bristol Ridge.

Bob

01:13

it's firmly in the "AMD? whyyyyyyyyyy" generation

Journeyman Geek

@Bob that's literally everything in the last decade ;p

bwDraco

Not sure I'd want that. It's very basic in terms of compute capability.

Bob

@JourneymanGeek to be fair, they were going alright up till the whole excavator/piledriver/bulldozer line

Journeyman Geek

@Bob half curious about the pair of chinese vendors who do x86

Michael Frank

@bwDraco Just put your server OS on your old computer.

bwDraco

01:16

I might as well build my own server using off-the-shelf workstation-class parts.

Bob

side note, the Opteron 2171 HEs that used ot be on Azure were horribad

Journeyman Geek

@Bob they haven't been particularly interesting

Bob

they've since switched the lower tiers over to some cheap-ish Xeons

bwDraco

@Bob Sadly, the Dragon isn't yet available for this use.

Bob

it feels like the difference between 2000 and 2015

Journeyman Geek

01:17

@bwDraco My first home server was a random PIII (when c2ds were a thing ;p)

bwDraco

(cbf migrating the rest of the data, and it's very noisy under load)

Journeyman Geek

Been running NUCs ever since

allquixotic

o/

Bob

\o

bwDraco

\o/

Journeyman Geek

01:18

and if I needed a bunch of compute, and not in one place...

blog.codinghorror.com/the-scooter-computer

I'd go with this approach

Bob

@JourneymanGeek what about Via? :P

I still have that Z2760 tablet

bwDraco

Was thinking about a C236 workstation motherboard in Mini-ITX form factor... found this: asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=C236%20WS

Bob

It can (barely) manage a Twitch stream

Journeyman Geek

@Bob one's actually sort of via

Bob

assuming said stream is being played in a dedicated app and not a browser

@bwDraco eh, aren't those fairly pricey?

bwDraco

01:23

Drop in a Kaby Lake Xeon E3 with 8 or 16 GB of DDR4 ECC memory...

Journeyman Geek

@Bob true, but these are supposedly desktop grade cores, via's always been low power/low performance...

which is perfect for some workloads

bwDraco

sigh

I'm looking at the wrong kit, whoops.

Bob

If you really wanted to do a home server, Atom C3000 might be worth taking a look at

bwDraco

$224 for 2x8 GB DDR4-2666 ECC UDIMMs (Crucial CT2K8G4WFD8266).

Bob

but that might be worse than the Opterons, idk

Journeyman Geek

01:26

hah

Bob

yea it's worse than the opterons

Journeyman Geek

@Bob that's what my online stuff runs on I think

Bob

@JourneymanGeek nah, you're on the older C2000 gen

Xeon-D is more competitive but probably costs more :P

Journeyman Geek

yup

Xeon-Ds look fun

Bob

@bwDraco go with something old that takes DDR3

Michael Frank

01:30

@JourneymanGeek I've read that before, but it's always a good read. :)

Journeyman Geek

@MichaelFrank Jeff's an excellent blogger

bwDraco

All this is just planning at this point. No purchases are planned at the moment. Astaroth already costed us more than $4,000.

Bob

Huh. And I thought this was expensive :P

bwDraco

...well, might as well just use the demon that's already on the table and run VMs.

Why spend money on new hardware when your existing computer equipment will do just fine?

Michael Frank

Exactly!

Journeyman Geek

01:33

For learning? Hell yeah

bwDraco

The system has 32 GB of RAM for a reason.

social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/…

They're just suggesting VirtualBox.

Which I'm already using.

Bob

you're probably better off with literally anything other than virtualbox, tbh

Hyper-V, VMware...

bwDraco

I've had too much trouble with Hyper-V in the past.

Michael Frank

That must be the worlds longest tutorial...

Bob

@bwDraco what, with the unsupported wifi config?

bwDraco

01:39

@Bob Not necessarily. I've had odd compatibility issues with Hyper-V in the past.

Some Linux guests don't play nice on Hyper-V.

Bob

meh, you're dealing with Windows guests now

bwDraco

Hmm. That might be a better fit.

Bob

Linux guest tools on Hyper-V is only a recent focus anyway (as in, within the last 1-2 years)

vbox is ... finicky

especially with win10/2016 which rely a lot on graphics accel

unless vbox has improved a lot with the 5.1/5.2 gen

allquixotic

02:03

I started licking my lips and looking at specs for those passive Atwood boxes on aliexpress

then I was like, wait, my server is paid through the end of 2019

no need to change

Journeyman Geek

02:17

@allquixotic replacing my router with one is a longer term goal ;p

(actually want a pair - pfsense on one initially while I work out how to build a equivilent linux based router)

Michael Frank

03:20

Internet at work is so terrible that YouTube defaults to 144p when set to Auto. :[

Journeyman Geek

oh

also, the weather is hot so I need a laptop cooler under my router to keep it stable ._.

bwDraco

03:34

lol

Journeyman Geek

05:39

I have a fancy USB enclosure that will boot ISOs directly off a directory. I just downloaded a zip rather than an ISO, dropped it into a directory and... wondered why its not showing up

facedesk

Bob

05:54

that poor desk

Journeyman Geek

Its pretty tough

it isn't sagging like my old one.

Bob

06:49

Playing around with the UI

that'll probably be an 'advanced' view

a simpler click-through 'basic' one is probably needed :P

bwDraco

07:45

Two nearly identical laptops, two very different processors: laptopmag.com/articles/amd-ryzen-mobile-vs-intel-8th-gen-core

fixer1234

Pretty cool: youtube.com/watch?v=OrwBc6PwAcY

bwDraco

AMD's Vega 8 processor graphics outperforms Intel's UHD Graphics 620 by an almost comical margin, while Intel still has an edge on some CPU-bound workloads.

Application launches are also faster on the Intel processor, possibly due to their Speed Shift technology.

But that AMD is anywhere near competitive with Intel's very latest Kaby Lake-R processors in everyday use cases... shows how far they've come.

Your thoughts?

Vylix

08:00

Can anyone post a screenshot to my meta meta.superuser.com/questions/12793/…

I need 10k user to screenshot deleted answer in superuser.com/questions/1095210/…

Thanks before!

Bob

I remember back in Win95/98 when downloading random DLLs to make programs work actually made sense.

Nowadays you're more likely to find malware :P

bwDraco

08:16

@Vylix Done.

Journeyman Geek

@bwDraco you shouldn't try to invoke conversations with "your thoughts?" ;p

bwDraco

Is it actively bad? Would a more complete question like "what do you think about these laptops" be better?

Again, my minimal social experience is seriously limiting my options.

Just looking for hints here. I am not looking to turn this into a big deal.

Journeyman Geek

Its just ... kinda arkward?

Overformal?

bwDraco

(almost said "no need for the ;p"; I understand you're trying to provide a hint rather than formally demand a change)

@JourneymanGeek Of note... I have a tendency to correct myself aggressively through editing. Is this a problem?

Journeyman Geek

Not really?

bwDraco

08:25

Asking because I've noticed you generally don't care about minor spelling or other errors unless it affects the meaning of the post.

Journeyman Geek

Yup

bwDraco

Was wondering if stopping this practice would be a good idea.

DavidPostill

@bwDraco IIRC the only time it is terribad is if there is a ping involved. Multiple edits will send multiple pings?

bwDraco

@DavidPostill Well... I missed that. Thanks.

DavidPostill

@bwDraco I'm not sure though. Let's do some science. How many pings did you get? Testing 1 2 3 :)

bwDraco

08:30

Got a second ping. :P

Got another ping.

DavidPostill

My memory is still OK then. Apologies for the testing :)

bwDraco

Well, that proves that making repeated, nonessential edits to messages that contain pings is still a Bad Idea™.

On to another topic...

One feature I miss in Corsair Utility Engine that ROCCAT Swarm has is the ability to change the RGB lighting of each key on events such as when another key is pressed.

While the essential benefit of per-key RGB lighting is still there, namely the ability to color-code each key, more complicated setups such as highlighting keyboard shorts when Ctrl is held down are not possible.

The RGB lighting is entirely software-controlled in Swarm, though, so if Swarm is not running, the keyboard just uses the default bluish color. On the other hand, the K95 RGB Platinum does have a limited ability to store RGB lighting effects in hardware, though I suspect conditional RGB effects are not likely to happen without software support.

This is something Corsair can definitely add in future versions of CUE.

I wonder if anyone has a use for this feature...

DavidPostill

I presume you did, or you wouldn't miss it? Why do you miss it?

bwDraco

> highlighting keyboard shorts when Ctrl is held down

Did this once, but later removed it because of complexity.

I suppose this will be of use for RTS players, though, where the game may use complex keyboard shortcuts.

@DavidPostill I liked having the feature because it made the per-key RGB lighting infinitely more useful.

Right now, I just have the keyboard RGB configured like most other stuff on the system: static color, in Astaroth purple (#e010ff).

Well, there is a CUE SDK which exposes an API for programmatic control of the RGB lighting.

Burgi

08:58

morning

djsmiley2k

o/

bwDraco

...nvm. I suspect it's the IMC and Infinity Fabric doing this. The memory's running at 2933 MHz FWIW.

It could be the PCIe, too, but that's less likely.

But 22W in non-core power is a bit high.

Michael Frank

Does CUE do that cool thing where you type and it looks like ripples?

I wouldn't buy a customisable backlit keyboard for it's functional uses. :)

bwDraco

Can't really test it out right now. It's 4 AM here.

I bought it because the K95 RGB Platinum is supposed to be one of the very best gaming keyboards out there.

So far, it's holding up to my expectations; what CUE is missing isn't a big deal.

Michael Frank

I've had several gaming keyboards, I've never used the extra macro keys.

I think any keyboard is good enough to game with if you find it comfortable to use.

bwDraco

09:10

I have one of the macro keys used for my photo-editing software.

Journeyman Geek

lol

@MichaelFrank I actually like having them in different colours for certain purposes.

also surprised no one's done that as a password scheme

Burgi

worst joke ever....

Journeyman Geek

"Red Vowel, Blue B purple constonant" ....

Burgi

> What happens if you drop a snowball in a glass of water?

Journeyman Geek

or just a colour code from a randomly mixed array

@Burgi water all over the table

Burgi

09:15

> It gets wet

IT DOESN'T!!!!

it melts

Michael Frank

@JourneymanGeek I never look at my keybaord when I'm gaming though.

Not instantly though...

It'll get wet, then melt.

Journeyman Geek

@MichaelFrank I do when I have trouble typing ;p

I sometimes have... days

Burgi

keyboards for dogs

Michael Frank

Oh right, I guess colour association could help with that

A is for... Aqua

DavidPostill

Keyboard Dog

►

bwDraco

09:19

@MichaelFrank You use a SteelSeries, right?

Michael Frank

@bwDraco Yep

DavidPostill

@MichaelFrank Oddly enough somebody has already done that :)

Journeyman Geek

Burgi

@JourneymanGeek MAH WAI FAI... IT NOT WORKZ

Journeyman Geek

MFW when we have over 25000 spam accounts ;p

bwDraco

09:29

@MichaelFrank SteelSeries Engine provides similar software-controlled dynamic per-key RGB lighting on the Apex M750.

CUE is technically capable of doing the same stuff, though.

djsmiley2k

Dear putty, Y U SO DUMB

it starts the putty sftp client in C:\program files\putty, where the user has no write permissions

bwDraco

I run PuTTY in a subdirectory of my home folder, rather than install it into Program Files.

allquixotic

@Burgi DOG'S NOT HOT

Dogs not hot

►

Captain Big Shaq travels to the Sun to prove that man's not hot

►

djsmiley2k

09:54

@bwDraco nice, once i figured out the issue I just cd'd to my local folder instead

but still, derp

Michael Frank

Argh... There's a $2.99 charge on my credit card from "AMAZON VIDEO AMAZON.COM WA" but I've got no idea what it's from! D:

djsmiley2k

fun times.

check your amazon account?

Michael Frank

There are so many different purchases locations, I've got no idea where to begin. :S

Oh, it's Amazon Prime Video...

djsmiley2k

10:13

@MichaelFrank but you log into amazon.com, go to your account, it shows all purchasing...... doesn't it?

Michael Frank

You'd think so...

djsmiley2k

hmmmm is there anything like iperf which doesn't require a server on the testing end :/

djsmiley2k

10:39

Burgi

10:57

@djsmiley2k did the wind blow that there or was it some scumbags?

allquixotic

@djsmiley2k iperf doesn't strictly require a server; there are featureful routers that support it in their router GUI

iperf, generally speaking, requires at least two computers capable of running a general-purpose operating system like Linux or BSD

there's no meaningful way to measure throughput with only a single computer because you're not sending the data to anywhere

it's like saying, I moved 3 meters. What was my speed? Well, without knowing the time it took me, you are lacking a dimension required to define a "speed".

djsmiley2k

11:18

@Burgi Wind I believe, I'm sure the service will bounce back.

Burgi

...

djsmiley2k

@allquixotic nod.

i could just run ping tests ;D

the problem is the devs are going 'this db query is takin too long!'

I've done some static file transfers which seem to be getting an ok speed, but not brilliant

And then i got called away on a completely different error

allquixotic

@djsmiley2k What is "too long" and how much actual data is being moved in each direction?

djsmiley2k

the query returns 10Mbyte of data

too long in this case is 20 seconds appently.

allquixotic

they need to do a profile on the DB itself and see if it's spending a long time in the CPU on the database rather than passing network traffic

djsmiley2k

11:22

yeah, they are saying if you run the query locally, it's quick

but I wonder if they ran that after running it remotely... cached query, etc...

allquixotic

also, if your DB query is returning 10 megs of data, for an information system, YDIW

djsmiley2k

@allquixotic Oh don't get me started

allquixotic

maybe for scientific computing, but not for IS

there's no IS workload in the world that has to return that much data to the application tier because people in IS work with smaller data sets and page it out (like scrolling through a huge list of employees) - not viewing/processing the whole thing at once

djsmiley2k

their 'test' is time db2 "SELECT * from product fetch first 1000 rows only

/me just facepalmed

yes, 1000 rows returns 10Mbytes!

allquixotic

yes, because every user constantly tries to fetch thousands of products and view all data about them simultaneously

which apparently is kilobytes of data per product

djsmiley2k

11:25

yeah fun times :)

I mean, yes there is something slightly odd with the network latency right now

which is what I'm kind of looking at

but all the while knowing it's not the true problem

allquixotic

is it latency or throughput?

djsmiley2k

Sorry, throughput

allquixotic

so small transactions come back fast?

djsmiley2k

I tested with a static 'random' file (urandom)

oddly, larger files seem better?

there's been no real testing yet @allquixotic

I just tried to replicate what they were seeing, using a static file rather than the db

I got transfer times between 10sec, and 22sec

allquixotic

@djsmiley2k Could be slow-start -- if you send a very small file, it may finish before your slow start congestion control algorithm ramps up

DavidPostill

11:28

Hmm

djsmiley2k

. 2017-12-07 09:47:39.105 Copying finished: Transferred: 10,485,760, Elapsed: 0:00:10, CPS: 1,045,300/s

. 2017-12-07 09:48:01.213 Copying finished: Transferred: 10,485,760, Elapsed: 0:00:11, CPS: 931,782/s

. 2017-12-07 09:51:00.793 Copying finished: Transferred: 10,485,760, Elapsed: 0:00:12, CPS: 878,640/s

. 2017-12-07 09:51:22.848 Copying finished: Transferred: 10,485,760, Elapsed: 0:00:13, CPS: 999,835/s

. 2017-12-07 10:02:12.573 Copying finished: Transferred: 10,485,760, Elapsed: 0:00:22, CPS: 630,549/s

lots and lots of variance :/

DavidPostill

> He has some of the most recognizable hair in the world - but most people aren't rushing to copy Donald Trump's signature 'do.

Unless you're this man, from Taiwan, who had an image of the President shaved into the back of his head, blonde quiff and all.

The bizarre trim was created at XB Hair, in the city of Changhua, which specializes in creating portraits on people's scalps.

allquixotic

I get slow-start borkedness all the time when doing Linux updates against Ubuntu: because you're downloading hundreds or thousands of files, each with its own separate HTTP Request, even though their server can in theory send data to me at near gigabit speeds, I end up downloading at like 300 KByte/s in actuality because the slow-start is constantly resetting

djsmiley2k

@DavidPostill I don't even....

@allquixotic yeah

well 10Mbyte file, would you expect that to be effected?

DavidPostill

Hahahah

> TripAdvisor's top London restaurant is... a SHED: Prankster fools ratings site with fake web page, fake food and fake reviews - and even manages to 'hoodwink' top critic Jay Rayner

> Oobah Butler set up a website and got take photographs of the 'food' which in reality was of shaving foam, bleach and paint.

Burgi

11:38

why did he do that?

djsmiley2k

was wondering myself

seems like a lot of work

@allquixotic is there anyway to counter slowstart?

/me tries a 100Mb file intead.

djsmiley2k

12:00

Yaaaaaaaaaaaas

allquixotic

12:12

@djsmiley2k it's a congestion control algorithm that's more or less in the hands of the party sending the most data over the TCP connection

to see if it's a session layer problem, use a session algorithm that is completely without congestion control (at least unless a given application chooses to implement it), like UDP

you need to test for the common network impairments at the IP layer: jitter, high average latency, latency spikes, packet loss, reduction of throughput availability, or bufferbloat

as long as you're sitting on top of TCP, it may obscure any readings you get

Bob

@djsmiley2k @allquixotic udt.sourceforge.net

djsmiley2k

12:36

and there's the problem, i can't install stuff on this server :D

/me passes it back to sysadmin to look at

Bob

@djsmiley2k it's not installed :P

djsmiley2k

nice

I can't even download stuff to that machine

Bob

wait is this one-off or long-term?

djsmiley2k

the fact I created a 10 and 100Mb file for testing isn't exactly great

one off

it's a production server (well, production for the dev env at least)

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