Root Access

That Brazilian Guy

12:03

@JourneymanGeek You have no idea how many times I have said that phrase over the last few months.

Journeyman Geek

lol

we just switched from blackboard

That Brazilian Guy

I am not a programmer, I have very limited programming background, and yet I was tasked with tinkering with it.

To be "fair", that's common around here, they look at you and give you a task just because.

The damn thing is a complete mess.

Journeyman Geek

it is

That Brazilian Guy

Absolutely no documentation ever.

NOWHERE.

Journeyman Geek

lol

I usually like FOSS software

this needs to die in a burning pyre of windows ME cds

That Brazilian Guy

12:05

People complain about WordPress.

Journeyman Geek

wordpress usually works

and its a great way to learn how to admin a lamp stack

and this isn't design issues

its clearly performance uissues

That Brazilian Guy

There is plenty of documentation in the WP Codex. It is not perfect, a few times it is outdated, but it does a pretty decent work of documenting not only the functions but guidelines of coding style, dos and don'ts, etc.

MOODLE HAS NOTHING!

NOTHING

Wait, is has: a forum. A GODDAM FORUM

that is WORSE THAN NOTHING

You sing up for it and start receiving notifications FOR EACH NEW MESSAGE IN THE ENTIRE SUBFORUM YOU EVER MAKE A POST

Not your replies, mind you, but EACH AND EVERY NEW POST

Journeyman Geek

lol

yanno

That Brazilian Guy

Not only that

The plugin system for wordpress is near perfect

I have used phpBB and it was a mess

Journeyman Geek

I think I hate this more than VBB. And thats hard. VBB is the rebecca black offorums.

this just goes "waiting for modleprod.murdoch.edu.au" and spins its wheels

That Brazilian Guy

12:08

In phpBB you manually edit core files. I REPEAT: you manually edit core files. Instruction goes like "look for a file that says XYZ and then under that replace for these few lines". Image the joy when line XYZ was ALREADY REPLACED BY ANOTHER PLUGIN

Journeyman Geek

and when you finally almost lose all hope, stabs you in the heart by timing out.

@ThatBrazilianGuy: as far as fora go, nothing beats smf

ChatBot John Cavil

@DamienOvereem Welcome to Root Access chat for Super Users! I am this channel's helpful chat bot. Please don't ask if you can ask or if anyone's around; just ask your question, and if anyone's free and interested they'll help. For bot commands, type !!listcommands

Journeyman Geek

... my request to moodle has timed out. Really?

ChatBot John Cavil

@lordzden Welcome to Root Access chat for Super Users! I am this channel's helpful chat bot. Please don't ask if you can ask or if anyone's around; just ask your question, and if anyone's free and interested they'll help. For bot commands, type !!listcommands

Journeyman Geek

... LOGGING OUT is taking time.

That Brazilian Guy

12:10

@JourneymanGeek The only experience I had was with phpBB, if others are worse I don't want to know. (Ok, the usability and experience and visual apearance were not that bad for its time, in fact the dashboard was alright, but the plugin system was... madnes... only madness...)

Journeyman Geek

Seriously what the hell?

lordzden

@ChatBotJohnCavil thanks

Journeyman Geek

@ThatBrazilianGuy: automatically updating plugin system with a repo

for stock plugins, its easy

That Brazilian Guy

The WordPress plugin system is perfection compared to it

Journeyman Geek

....

it timed out while I was tyring to log out.

That Brazilian Guy

12:11

Anyway, so I was spoiled by wordpress, with a nice Codex, groups all around on every social networks, billions of google results, nice plugin system with a central repository etc

lordzden

Hi! In my webhosting provider they have this: GnuPG is a publicly available encryption scheme that uses the "public key" approach. Is this important? What is your understanding on this. Thanks

That Brazilian Guy

@lordzden The guys at Information Security can explain in more detail why and how it is important.

1 min ago, by lordzden

Hi! In my webhosting provider they have this: GnuPG is a publicly available encryption scheme that uses the "public key" approach. Is this important? What is your understanding on this. Thanks

Hmm.... I smell homework.

lordzden

...I am an ordinary guy with no ideal with web, and in my hosting provider they have this menu: Security > GnuPG Keys. Then I'm promoted to register. any idea?

That Brazilian Guy

Well, I can tell you in a broad sense what authentication keys are how how they work, roughly

lordzden

hhmmm, I mean should I do the sign up? or should i just leave it behind...

a quote : "With GnuPG, messages are encrypted using a "public key" however, they can only be decrypted by a "private key", which is retained by the intended recipient of the message."

That Brazilian Guy

12:19

@lordzden Strangers on the internet can only tell you how it works, or why it is important. Only you can make the decision if it is worth to use or not.

Also I think I am confusing RSA / SSH keys and GPG encryption.

Seriously, ask here: chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/151/the-dmz

Oliver Salzburg

@ThatBrazilianGuy It's both public-key cryptography

lordzden

@ThatBrazilianGuy hhhmm, thanks for helping me out!! I can see that your putting my message on the other chat! thank!!!

That Brazilian Guy

@lordzden Well, I hope you find someone to explain it to you.

lordzden

@ThatBrazilianGuy :)

That Brazilian Guy

@OliverSalzburg Isn't GPG only for encrypting messages contents (email is what comes to mind) and RSA keys for handshaking when you establish a connection?

Or am I mistaken

Oliver Salzburg

12:25

@ThatBrazilianGuy The underlying principle is the same though

Jimmy Hoffa

@JourneymanGeek People complain because adminning a LAMP stack shouldn't happen unless the P stands for Postgre and the M stands for sMalltalk or Miranda or scheMe

Oliver Salzburg

In authentication, the server sends you a message, you then encrypt it with your private key, he decrypts it with your public key, if the result is the original message, everything is awesome

But don't quote me on that ;P

That Brazilian Guy

@OliverSalzburg Yeah, but why would an ISP ~~advice~~ offer a (much probably paid) option in the dashboard GPG? If it's for email then the ISP only forwards the damn MTA's regardless of the contents, and both end users impĺemenet their own keys on their ends. Unless the ISP wants to cahrge for generating and storing the key? WTF?

Jimmy Hoffa

@OliverSalzburg This is asymmetric encryption, it's one of many approaches, this is how SSL works and generally unnecessary to be hand-implemented in any fashion due to the availability of SSL tunnels for just about any network protocol

Oliver Salzburg

@ThatBrazilianGuy They advise it because it's a good idea to use it

Jimmy Hoffa

12:28

@ThatBrazilianGuy I'm guessing you mean PGP?

That Brazilian Guy

@JimmyHoffa Yeah, GPG is a PGP software

Jimmy Hoffa

o

That Brazilian Guy

@OliverSalzburg FTFM.

Jimmy Hoffa

I thought PGP was broken long ago?

Oliver Salzburg

@ThatBrazilianGuy Humm, yeah, that sounds weird. No idea, would have to check the offer myself

Maybe it includes some commercial PGP desktop solution :P

That Brazilian Guy

12:30

@JimmyHoffa I don't know. I only started using it at work a few months ago, actually they made me create a pair of keys but seldom anyone uses the encryption.

@JimmyHoffa Is it really broken?

Jimmy Hoffa

@ThatBrazilianGuy Nah, my inspection tells me that PGP doesn't dictate the cryptographic approach, just the overarching communication approach

Just make sure you use a crypto algorithm that's not broken and you're fine

Though modern CUDA techniques dictate the number of unbroken crypto-algorithms is progressively smaller than you would otherwise think...

That Brazilian Guy

Oh wait, it's not PGP we use, but GnuPG

"Full replacement of PGP.
Does not use any patented algorithms."

"Supports ElGamal, DSA, RSA, AES, 3DES, Blowfish, Twofish, CAST5, MD5, SHA-1, RIPE-MD-160 and TIGER."

How the hell I find out wich one I use?

Bob

@JourneymanGeek whaddayaknow, we just did the same :P

@JourneymanGeek SMF! SMF! SMF! :D

I read somewhere that it was initially designed to be like vB.

First forum software I ever used. Still love it.

Maintaining it is a joy (though, the new admin area they introduced in an update a couple years back was painful, but you could switch to the old one).

Then someone asked me to help with a vB issue.

Oh god.

So. Many. Menus.

That Brazilian Guy

@Bob Worse than Moodle? I find it... Unlikely.

Bob

12:45

It's anyone's guess which (apparently identical) section a plugin decided to put its settings in.

@ThatBrazilianGuy I've never been on the admin side of Moodle, but the user side it... well, it doesn't bode well.

Also, I heard some version of phpBB stored passwords as plaintext by default. WTF?

That Brazilian Guy

@Bob Wordpress suffers a bit from it. There's no standard. Some plugins will add new entries to the "tools" section, others will create a new tab, others will add a new area under an existing settings page... Gets crazy with too many plugins (but then, you need to be crazy to install a lot of plugins in the first place)

Bob

@ThatBrazilianGuy Oh, it only took me three hours of digging to find out that to enable a shoutbox you have to enable the plugin, enable it in the general settings page (subsection via drop-down (??)), enable it in the user/group settings, add its template item to the theme (if non-default, which is most of the time), set up pre-/post- hooks in weird and obscure places, etc., etc..

And this applied to at least two different shoutbox plugins, neither of which thought it would be useful to document much of it.

Also, apparently SE chat has a max-length-per-line limit :S

That Brazilian Guy

@Bob IT doesn't pisses me off as much as if something averagely popular (say, a shoutbox) has a trillion different plugins, each with its quirks, some compatilbe only with older versions, some outdated and / or abandoned, some using weird libraries, implementations, etc... Some with little to no documentation

Every time I see more the wisdom of people I know saying "the less plugins the better"

Bob

@ThatBrazilianGuy Oh, I'm just talking about the main two. There were dozens more I didn't want to touch.

I encountered the too-many-goddamn-plugins syndrome while working with Drupal, though.

When there's a clear one that's ahead, I don't mind. It's when you have a pile of more-or-less-the-same ones... Which one should I use?!

Jimmy Hoffa

@Bob Learn this moral well: Do not trust a PHP developer. No no you don't understand, I'm telling you, DO NOT trust a PHP developer.

That Brazilian Guy

12:58

@Bob It is a bit less worse when there's one that stands out with a million downloads and users, frequents updates and such. One can assume it might be better. Not always true, however

What really, really pisses me off is the search system on the whole wordpress.org site.

Everything: themes search, plugins search, specially the support issue system.

It is just a (really, reeeeeally old / basic) version of a forum system

Each plugin author gets a "support" link on the plugin profile

And support requests goes to this "forum"

But, in reality, every plugin EVER just dumps the posts on the same forum

And you can't search locally, just globally

(ok, you use tags, but it's cumbersome and counetrintuictive)

And for some popular plugins there are pages and pages and pages of posts

No stickyes, nothing

The only way is clicking page after page

Good luck finding out if anyone had the issue before

I hate, hate, hate, hate these support forums

Usually I end up contacting the developer.

Bob

I suppose Drupal has the advantage there. Proper support/issue tracking.

@ThatBrazilianGuy Reminds me of just about every blog I've ever been to...

Boris_yo

Does this video work for anyone? youtube.com/watch?v=q5STyb9xKwU

I think YouTube has encoding error.

Braiam

@Boris_yo 1:15 and everything is fine

btw, he overkills with the rocket laucher

Boris_yo

@Braiam Does not work for me. Says error.

Braiam

Ctrl + F5 FTW!

Bob

13:13

@Braiam May not be supported by all browsers*

(seriously, I think every browser has their own different force refresh combination :S)

Braiam

@Bob who still uses IE?

Bob

@Braiam Seriously, stop it with the IE hate. It's not even funny anymore, let alone true.

That Brazilian Guy

@Bob The problem is not the blogs that implement WorPress. That is up to the site owner and its supposed incompetence. But the official site of the most popular CMS ever being that counterintuictive? That's seriously flawed business.

Braiam

@Bob mm... I'm asking if anyone uses IE... I'm not stating any fact but asking a question ;) please, don't read so much into it

Bob

IE8+ have been pretty good with standards. IE9+ has been good with performance.

IE6 is almost as old as Firefox, and far older than Chrome.

Simon Sheehan

13:17

Chrome is only out as of like 08/09?

I believe anyway, that's when I recall seeing it first

Bob

Heck, last I checked IE8 was released around the time Chrome landed its first stable release.

@Braiam You also ignored a whole bunch of other browsers. Last I checked, Chrome, Firefox, Opera and IE don't agree on a force-refresh key.

@ThatBrazilianGuy That's the default configuration, though.

It doesn't matter how good you can make something with thousands of hours - sane defaults are always better.

Braiam

378

A: What requests do browsers' "F5" and "Ctrl + F5" refreshes generate?

It is up to the browser but they behave in similar ways. I have tested FF, IE7, Opera and Chrome. F5 usually updates the page only if it is modified. The browser usually tries to use all types of cache as much as possible and adds an "If-modified-since" header to the request. Opera differs by s...

only that doesn't use it is Opera

Bob

@Braiam Huh, that's news to me.

Braiam

@Bob you should read at least the 100 more voted questions on SO ;)

Bob

@Braiam Bah, too many! :P

Journeyman Geek

13:53

@Bob apparently BB won't do support in australia, which is why they switched

Bob

@JourneymanGeek That... actually explains a lot.

Our online Maple lessons are still on Blackboard for now, though. It's painful to find - it's like the only thing left on there, and nothing links to it.

Journeyman Geek

thing is

blackboard worked perfectly, all the time

Bob

Oh come on.

Moodle has been popping up an announcement on every login. Despite dismissing it. It's an end of semester "hope you have fun please take the survey" from last sem... that's over three months ago :S

clicks ignore

refreshes

Oh there it is!

@JourneymanGeek Strangely, I think we've had more Moodle uptime.

It's... painful to use, though.

Journeyman Geek

its been timing up, or resetting...

about a dozen times today

Bob

Thankfully most of the serious stuff in my courses are hosted on different servers, on different systems.

Actually... not so thankfully. Moodle might've been better -_-

OpenLearning is more than a little buggy. It's also developed by former students, so... ya.

Journeyman Geek

13:58

lol

everyone is a former student.

Bob

Then there's the one my DB lecturer did. It does work, which is nice. On the other hand, it uses framesets.

Journeyman Geek

oh, one of my lecturers used his own moodle instance

it was nice, VERY stable

even fast

Bob

lol

I guess they're hosting the main one on a really crappy server?

Journeyman Geek

could be

or they just renamed the little old desktop they were using in dev as production

3

and its keeling under the load

Bob

I remember when they opened course enrollment for second sem. The enrollment system was effectively down for 3-4 hours.

I was sitting there waiting 15 mins at a time for a page to load.

@JourneymanGeek Yup, just slap a new sticker over the old one!

I really don't understand how they acquire new hardware.

We have at least one lab full of iMacs... which all have Debian installed. Sure, buy the most overpriced and hard to service hardware available and install the exact same image used in every other lab -_-

Journeyman Geek

14:03

lol

Bob

So, uh... American gov still arguing like a cross between headless chickens and kindergarteners?

2

Oliver Salzburg

@Bob Seems like it

Jimmy Hoffa

14:18

@Bob The argument is more akin to a squirrel and a power line, it devolves into a biting match that causes a blackout of nearby electric facilities and a blackout of the squirrel

That Brazilian Guy

Anyone here uses Bunderthird? superuser.com/questions/660214/…

Bob

That Brazilian Guy

It's a silly error I could just ignore, but it is irritating and slowly drives me mad.

Bob

source

@ThatBrazilianGuy I use it, but I have no idea what this unified inbox is.

Hennes

14:38

@Bob Nope. They finally stopped that along with a lot of other business

this question just begs for an thermite answer.

allquixotic

Hii

Bob

@allquixotic Hi

allquixotic

@Bob :)

Bob

@allquixotic Any riots in the streets yet? :P

allquixotic

@CanadianLuke you are a hero

@Bob actually yes -- and I consider myself tremendously lucky to be working in some capacity for the federal government while this shitstorm is going on.

Journeyman Geek

14:47

0

A: How to destroy a CD/DVD rom?

The proper way is to get yourself a shredder that also handles cds - look online for cd shredders. This is the right option if you end up doing this routinely I don't do this very often - For small scale destruction I favour a pair of tin snips - they have enough force to cut through a cd, yet a...

Bob

@allquixotic Wait seriously (riots)? o.O

Journeyman Geek

I'm gonna get complaints but, microwave!

@Hennes: or liquid nitrogen!

Bob

@JourneymanGeek My shredder handles CDs. It just makes two parallel cuts - cuts the discs into thirds. Frankly, that's not very secure.

allquixotic

@Bob well. protesters. not riots.

Hennes

Liqued H2? And a small spark.

Bob

14:47

@allquixotic Ah. That sounds a bit better.

allquixotic

@JourneymanGeek or hydrofluoric acid :P (I learned that from Breaking Bad)

Bob

@allquixotic Don't touch that shit :S

Hennes

I am told H2 will go BOOM from concentration of 7% up to 90%

Journeyman Geek

@allquixotic: I thought HF didn't eat plastic?

acetone would work here.

Hennes

HF is bad. OK?

Bob

14:48

HF does a nice job of killing people.

Journeyman Geek

HF eats glass.

Hennes

Check the direction the wind is blowing from. And wear jogging shoes. That bad.

allquixotic

@Bob or dissolving ones that are already dead

Hennes

It causes horrible burns. It passes though skin.

Bob

@Hennes It leeches calcium from bones.

Hennes

14:49

It will cause fluoride poisoning

Journeyman Geek

ok

I spent 20 minutes trying to upload my assignment

ONE more try and I'm going to bed, and trying at 5.30 in the morning

Hennes

Where does the upload fail?

allquixotic

@JourneymanGeek try pushing it in pieces to Amazon S3, then use your VPS to transfer it from S3 to the assignment server

Journeyman Geek

@Hennes: upload page to turnitin usually times out.

(on moodle's side)

jokerdino

@JourneymanGeek that's why you should upload when the Americans are sleeping.

Journeyman Geek

14:51

or connection gets reset

@jokerdino: australians.

Hennes

Can you upload it elsewhere (e.g. to your own server) and then upload it from there?

Journeyman Geek

no

jokerdino

@JourneymanGeek Except for Bob, everyone else is sleeping.

Journeyman Geek

because its turnitin

The actual assignment will be submitted hard copy

allquixotic

@JourneymanGeek meaning what, exactly?

it's DRM?

Bob

14:52

@JourneymanGeek Most of us are sleeping.

jokerdino

@allquixotic Turnitin is a plagiarism checker.

allquixotic

I mean... you could do RDP into a server with Firefox and submit it from there, surely?

Journeyman Geek

@allquixotic: I need to submit the assignment to a plagisum detection service via the school network

allquixotic

FTP it up with resume support?

Journeyman Geek

@allquixotic: tried using another ISP

allquixotic

14:53

oh, it has to be via the school network? that sucks.

Bob

Heh. I could set up a tunnel for you if you want, @JourneymanGeek.

Journeyman Geek

@allquixotic: If I had options, I'd use them

through a school site

Jimmy Hoffa

@JourneymanGeek Just e-mail it to your teacher with a message "I tried numerous times to upload it to no success, and will try again after I wake up, but here's my work it is completed on time"

Bob

It's one step closer, if nothing else.

Journeyman Geek

which uploads it to moodle.

@JimmyHoffa: I have time

allquixotic

14:53

OIC

Jimmy Hoffa

@JourneymanGeek Then who cares, go to bed.

Journeyman Geek

its due thursday

allquixotic

so it goes: your box -> school site -> moodle

Journeyman Geek

yes

allquixotic

the your box -> school site is OK

but school site -> moodle times out

Journeyman Geek

14:53

school site is a buggy piece of shit

2

IE moodle

Bob

They do maintenance on our site at this time.

allquixotic

it's weird how sometimes when you listen to music it sounds completely different than before... maybe Breaking Bad changed me :S (I saw the final episode yesterday)

Hennes

32GB for 30 pound. Wow. I want me sume of that shit! superuser.com/questions/621456/remove-16gb-cap

Journeyman Geek

geek logs into schoolsite. Geek goes to moodle. Finds turnitin link, which is a moodle plugin. Gives information. Hits upload... waits 5 minutes before it gives me errors.

Bob

Daily maintenance.

For a whole hour.

WTH are they doing?

Journeyman Geek

14:55

Geek wants to feed all these people to velociraptors, cause anklemauling is TOO GOOD FOR THEM.

2

allquixotic

@Bob offline backup?

Bob

@allquixotic That seems a little overkill.

allquixotic

@Bob I didn't say it was a good idea

Bob

Also, the entire DB is likely < 5 GB.

allquixotic

just could be what they're doing

I can't imagine an actual person is doing stuff with the server every single day for a whole hour

Bob

14:55

Our DB lecturer gave us a partial sanitised copy. It was big, but not that big.

allquixotic

and one of the few meaningful automated maintenance tasks (albeit the "offline" aspect is extremely suspect; it should be online backup!) is backup

jokerdino

The whole of SE data dump is maybe 4.2 GB.

Bob

@allquixotic Yea, pretty sure it's automated (also, 1 AM). But that doesn't really explain what it's doing.

allquixotic

aside from that... DB vacuuming? lol.

Bob

@jokerdino Isn't that the compressed size?

@allquixotic Pretty sure most DBMSes can do everything online.

jokerdino

14:57

@Bob possibly. with links to images instead of actual images.

Bob

A DBMS you need to take offliine to perform routine tasks is a shitty DBMS.

allquixotic

@Bob they can, but if this is a true dailywtf.com system, they're using a DBMS that can't do anything like vacuuming or backup while online

Journeyman Geek

@Bob: could be backups.

That Brazilian Guy

@JourneymanGeek loves making 1 char edits on my answers. I just found an answer of his that has exactly 1 char wrong. SE says I can't edit less that 6 chars.

Looks like you get some treats if you're a small dog. Everybody lovs dogs.

(except cats)

Journeyman Geek

lol

allquixotic

14:57

I KNOW!

Journeyman Geek

@ThatBrazilianGuy: also, lots of rep

Bob

@JourneymanGeek And why would you need to take the system down for an hour for routine daily backups?

allquixotic

it's Microsoft Access backed

Journeyman Geek

I can fix that if you can point that out

allquixotic

it has to be

Journeyman Geek

14:58

@Bob: planned maintainance window?

Bob

@allquixotic pretty sure it's postgres, actually

@JourneymanGeek daily. at 1 AM.

Journeyman Geek

@Bob: I tried a few hours ago s well

jokerdino

@Bob saving server power.

Hennes

[configuration] 94 tags left

Bob

and it's down many weekends for scheduled maintenance/upgrades, which are unrelated

jokerdino

14:58

@shutdown at 1 am
@reboot at 2 am

Bob

lol

allquixotic

lol

Hennes

So that the hardware can cool off ?

allquixotic

automated air duster? :)

Hennes

Nope. Tape changes in the server room. But that server makes too much noise, so lets turn it off

Journeyman Geek

14:59

daily ~~neurotoxin~~ halon release

your school is run by Glados!

2

Braiam

evolution is so neat:

Transcript for