The Comms Room

Jacob

2:15 AM

Hello again....

S.Ragavendra Ganesh

2:32 AM

Hello akk

*all

Jacob

Hello

S.Ragavendra Ganesh

I am new to this chat window friend.. nice to chat with you

TGP1994

7:16 AM

Evening everyone.

Iszi

7:27 AM

@TGP1994 Howdy

lynxman

3:14 PM

Happy Sunday everybody

Ben

Afternoon

packs

Good morning

lynxman

@Ben it's even a sunny one, mostly welcomed after this grey week

morning packs

alvosu

Good evening

Ben

Screw having an IT-related meme, it should just be Good $AppropriateTimeOfDay - it seems to be cause for A LOT of discussion!

lynxman

3:18 PM

lol

Ben

Lucky you @lynxman - it's very grey here and looks like it's going to chuck it down any time soon

lynxman

@Ben It's the wrong way around then, here in London it should be grey and sunny outside of it

packs

@Ben I've always preferred ${TIME_OF_DAY}.

lynxman

@packs does that have in consideration TZ settings?

Ben

Meh, I suppose that will do - it's just we do seem to spend a disproportionate amount of time discussing whether it's morning/afternoon/evening in our part of the world :P

packs

3:23 PM

@lynxman If I want to take into account TZ settings, I could probably get a bash oneliner out there to translate into morning/afternoon/evening.

I just haven't wanted to take the time.

We could just standardize on UTC-5

lynxman

fair enough :)

Ben

@packs or UTC like the rest of the site :-)

packs

It is the only time zone that matters, after all :)

Ben

But I am of course biased towards UTC

lynxman

It would just be easier to say Good (have sun here|have moon here)

@Ben same here, UTC rocks

Iain

3:25 PM

G'day

packs

@Iain Would that be UTC+12?

lynxman

Top of the morning Iain

alvosu

I bad understand english. How sysadm can learn English?..

Iain

it's a timezone neutral greeting

lynxman

Iain Yeah... until the Australians took it ;)

@alvosu As any other human being, through painful classes ;)

Iain

3:30 PM

I think it's only Australian if followed by bruce|sheila

lynxman

hmm fair enough, that's the epitome of Australian

Iain

and we lost the one day series to them too :(

lynxman

we still got the Ashes though

Iain

:)

packs

I usually throw my ashes out after they've cooled.

Iain

3:37 PM

possible spammer - 3 answers 3 plugs for the same product serverfault.com/users/67261/uroni

packs

Though I suppose mixing them into the compost every so often wouldn't hurt.

Ben

The other guy peddling octoBackup looks suspicious too

lynxman

The username suspiciously matches with the product name as well

UrBackup ~ UrOni

Iain

aye

packs

Too bad we can't flag a user

lynxman

3:38 PM

Backup companies retorting to unusual marketing methods? Color me surprised :)

Iain

@packs - if I had ashes I would mix tem into my compost heap

lynxman

@packs maybe flag the answer as spam would help?

packs

@lynxman That's what I did. It would just be easier to flag the whole account

@Iain You just have to be careful about the over all ph.

Iain

I've flagged em too - I think it takes 5 flags for them to be auto removed

lynxman

flagged as well

Yeah it would be an interesting addition to be able to flag a user

packs

3:45 PM

@lynxman Although, I would rather have a freeform migration field first.

Ben

It's been discussed (and thrown out) before btw

8

Q: Flag abusive users

I think the community does a great job policing questions/answers, etc. and the community has some good tools available to do this. Between flagging questions with some reasons behind it and editing posts, closing them, and deleting them, the only thing that seems to be missing to me is the abil...

packs

I have never voted to migrate things to webmaster, but I regularly flag and ask that it be moved to security.

Iain

@alvosu your English is better than my Russian

packs

I understand having a small number of automagic migration choices from a UI design. But having an 'other site' radio button might be helpful.

lynxman

@Ben the reply is right, I can see how flagging a user can become abusive too :/

alvosu

3:59 PM

@lain приятно слышать

Iain

@alvosu Я не говорю любых других языках

and google translate is a bit hit and miss

alvosu

@lain terrible translation

lynxman

Google Translator really fails when corssing language families latin -> germanic -> slavic provide comedical results

alvosu

@lain 'Я не говорю на других языках' is correct

Jacob

Hello Everyone

Ben

4:15 PM

Hey Jacob

Check out lost in translation - it's hysterical

lynxman

hello Jacob

Jacob

It didn't make it back to English but it was quite funny in German

Iain

what are the requirements for a SE2 site making it out of beta ?

Ben

@Iain I'm not 100%, but the IT Security SE is in public beta and it says its progress will be evaluated in 11 days. Looking at a few others, it looks like they're all evaluated after 3 months (90 days) of public beta

Iain

4:32 PM

I'm curious about what they are evaluated against

Jacob

Do you get 100 Rep for linking accounts?

Iain

yep

Jacob

I just received 100 Rep for seemingly nothing.

Ben

I'd guess the metrics that are listed on the same page @Iain

Iain

@Ben - I missed the link in your original reply

Jacob

4:37 PM

0

Q: Easy wat to update apache on a server cluster with shared NFS conf?

Hi all, we have a server setup where a server cluster connected with a db/files/conf server shared by nfs serve our sites, behind an Elastic Load Balancer at Amazon EC2. The setup works correctly, but keeping it up to date is becoming like hell, because the apache/php conf that webservers use i...

nfs

@Ben mind approving the edit?

Ben

@Jacob anyone over a certain rep (2k I imagine) can approve edits btw - I approved that one for you though

Jacob

@Ben Thanks

Ben

Yay, now it's not often I'm glad it rains but today it means my partner has to stop cleaning his motorbike :-) Later all..

lynxman

@Ben later!

packs

4:54 PM

I think I heard that the RPG site was still in beta after something like 160-odd days. So the evaluation is a recurring thing until they decide to go gold, or get abandoned I assume.

lynxman

Maybe they wait to get enough traction to the site to take it out of beta?

hey @alvosu would you mind expanding your answer to this question serverfault.com/questions/228828/…

Sam

Looks like we have another new user trying to pimp out his own product

0

A: Robocopy silently missing files

Because we are doing a consolidated backup of files for a couple of server we used robocopy for a while. But because robocopy is hard to monitor I wrote a "automated robocopy" called octoBackup. While software testing I had problems syncing files with the 8.3-~-style. From the octoBackup FAQ: ...

There were more, but choppers deleted most

lynxman

dodgy marketing FTL

Jacob

Wow

Could you be any more obvious?

alvosu

@lynxman I do not mind, but my English is opposed.

lynxman

5:01 PM

@alvosu Just give him an example of how he can acomplish this through procmail, should be more than good

Sam

To be fair, that one isn't as bad, he at least admits it's his own software, in the deleted ones he make no reference to that, just offers it as a solution

alvosu

I don't understand half the questions =)

lynxman

@alvosu Believe me it's not a question of your English level =) half of them are difficult to read

Jacob

He wants a system to send Gmail a new message email telling him to check that inbox

I'd just find another widget personally.

lynxman

@Jacob same here, but it's a good way to learn too

sometimes by doing the most complicated things instead of the simple stuff you can learn a lot

with years you'll get lazy (like me) and just discard complicated options because there should be an easier way of doing it

Jacob

5:07 PM

2

A: How do I replace a drive on my NAS?

On Page 117 of the manual it lists the process here Reading it appears you can just pull out the drives hot and it will auto-rebuild the RAID. Replacing Damaged Hard Drives If you are using RAID 1, RAID 5, or RAID 6 you can easily replace a damaged hard drive in the Thecus N8800 while...

lynxman

@Jacob good one

Jacob

@lynxman I read the manual... why is that bad?

It states that it will rebuild...

lynxman

@Jacob Replying RTFM is kinda frown upon, I know it's not your intention here but... :)

RobertMoir is right

Jacob

@lynxman I wasn't going for RTFM but I read it and here is what it said...

lynxman

@Jacob yeah, I understand what you mean, but remember something, when writing you can't really read entonation nor intention, so it could be misinterpreted

so much angst created by e-mail that way

Jacob

5:17 PM

I quit with my Linux box....

I can get wordpress to edit locally, it always wants FTP even if I chmod 777

To my Windows box it is....

Jacob

6:49 PM

Its quiet... to quiet...

To restart the converstation... Always remember to allow RDP thru the windows Firewall before enabling it... I didn't...

Warner

7:24 PM

Usually nothing is said over the weekend.

packs

nothing

Jacob

@Warner It comes in bursts.

Warner

The elections have really increased chat activity in general.

Calvin Froedge

7:55 PM

Sup admins!

Jacob

@CalvinFroedge Hello

Calvin Froedge

@Jacob = )

so why hang out in the serverfault chat room?

I'm here just to check it out

i'd love to know from "the regulars" why they come here, if there are regulars

Jacob

@CalvinFroedge I leave it up while on my PC and talk while I work on stuff.

@CalvinFroedge There isn't much activity on the weekends

Calvin Froedge

@Jacob sweet...mainly for troubleshooting or just to shoot bull w/ other admins

Jacob

8:11 PM

@CalvinFroedge Mainly we just talk about whatever comes to mind be admin topics or what music we're listening to. But sometimes people come in here for support.

Zoredache

9:03 PM

@CalvinFroedge during the weekdays it can get very interesting.

Jacob

@Zoredache It gets interesting during weekends just not as often...

Zoredache

I am not usually in here on the weekends, so it isn't interesting. It is only interesting when I am here. ;)

Jacob

@Zoredache Oh I see your the star of chat now :)

Iain

well, that's raised the interest level

Zoredache

In my mind, I am the star of the entire world.

And possibly other worlds as well. I haven't decided about extraterrestrial megalomania yet.

hintss

9:07 PM

BOFH much?

Jacob

@Zoredache In my mind I AM the most important thing across the vastness of space and time.

Zoredache

BTW, does anyone know how this list is populated? serverfault.com/questions?sort=faq

Jacob

@Zoredache I've never seen that choice before?

Zoredache

I haven't noticed it before either. But it seems to be a list of frequently referenced questions.

I am curious how it is being generated.

Jacob

@Zoredache I bet via most links to or via views?

voretaq7

9:22 PM

@Jacob may also have something to do with the number of times stuff has been closed as a duplicate of...

Jacob

@voretaq7 Thats a possiblity

Jacob

9:37 PM

@voretaq7 mind going to JacobJernigan.com and letting me know how it loads? I think is a little slow but I can't really tell

voretaq7

1.8sec - not too bad

Jacob

@voretaq7 I think its because my DB and webserver are different, and they use the external IP to talk to each other.

I am writing a question on that now hehe

voretaq7

mmh, probably not a factor honestly

Kyle Brandt

I please have rrd data python import kthxbye.

Jacob

@voretaq7 they are hooked into the switch so I doubt it routes across the internet

@KyleBrandt what?

voretaq7

9:42 PM

there may be some delay there - you can profile your query to see how long it's taking - but google results take 1.5sec to fully load -- if you're seeing delays it's probably browser rendering :)

Kyle Brandt

@Jacob: Wishing for a library that imports data in RRD into python

voretaq7

@KyleBrandt You no can has. (or you can only has a sucky one, like most RRD libraries :-)

Jacob

@KyleBrandt oh good luck with that one :)

Kyle Brandt

@voretaq7: Ya, kind of surprising... you think people would want access to their rrd data

Murali Suriar

Evening all.

voretaq7

9:43 PM

(I assume code.google.com/p/rrdpy doesn't cut the mustard - it didn't for me)

Kyle Brandt

Just writing something parse fetch output for the time being

Don't want to learn how to parse that XML at the moment

Jacob

@KyleBrandt XML== complete and utter no fun :(

Kyle Brandt

@Jacob: It is more I don't want to deal with trying to figure out the output format

Murali Suriar

On the upside though, there are far more libraries in a well maintained state for XML.

Certainly compared to RRD. :P

voretaq7

@MuraliSuriar well maintained, but still generally high levels of suck.

(they suck with few bugs :-D)

Murali Suriar

9:47 PM

That's true, but then anything $USER didn't write has large levels of suck. :)

Kyle Brandt

I did a couple of Perl libraries built on Perl's XML parsing libraries, that wasn't too bad

voretaq7

@KyleBrandt I can say the same thing about parsing XML with PHP (PEAR) libraries, but I always stumble into some kind of issue the library chokes on

Jacob

I never learned Perl; .net and Java and PHP for me....

voretaq7

then again every time I'm promised well-formed XML I get mismatched tags & stuff not in the DTD :-)

@Jacob People think perl is the swiss army chainsaw of scripting languages -- it's not

(it's a swiss-army wheat combine)

Jacob

@voretaq7 I honesty don't get the reference but I did have a laugh

Kyle Brandt

9:51 PM

Perl would be my favorite if the nested data structures were not so akward compared to pythons

voretaq7

@Jacob usenix.org/publications/perl/perl01.html & other places

@KyleBrandt Python would be higher on my list if whitespace wasn't code :-) I'm still a perl or bourne shell guy for scripting these days

Murali Suriar

@voretaq7 Whitespace being code is awesome. It neatly sidesteps any and all arguments people try and have about where braces are supposed to go. :P

About the only thing left to argue about is tabs vs. spaces. (Always expand tabs to spaces, set tabstop 2.)

voretaq7

@MuraliSuriar my argument is entirely aesthetic: I like my argument lists to line up, python says I can't do that. I do think it's the ideal language for beginning CS students though: Guarantees they learn how to indent :-)

Antonius Bloch

I'm planning on getting another subnet

Jacob

@AntoniusBloch how did you solve the IP thru the Firewall, I am looking to do something like that if I ever put my PFsense back in the rack

Antonius Bloch

10:04 PM

and routing

like Jacob suggested

but with pfSense you might want to just do bridging

if I had more control over the environment that's what I would do

Jacob

@AntoniusBloch I suggested 1to1 Kyle suggested the route

Antonius Bloch

right

Murali Suriar

@voretaq7 I don't understand what you mean?

Re: argument lists.

Antonius Bloch

mis-type

I would have a public ip space behind your pfSense

and have a private network on another switch

voretaq7

if a function has a really long list of arguments that hits the end of a line I like to continue the list on the next line under the "("

Jacob

10:07 PM

@AntoniusBloch I only wish I could get another subnet like so... my ISP charges a nice amount per CIDR

Murali Suriar

python allows that?

Antonius Bloch

use the private for management & sql connections etc

voretaq7

@MuraliSuriar nope - not that I know of. That's why I dont like it :-)

Murali Suriar

Certainly at least since 2.4

voretaq7

really?

Murali Suriar

10:08 PM

I've got code at work which does precisely that...

/me fires up an interpreter to verify.

Jacob

@AntoniusBloch That was a question I was going to think about, if I should use another switch for a private subnet

Antonius Bloch

it's more secure and I really like to have a physically separated management network

voretaq7

if so I withdraw my aesthetic distaste, and maintain only my "Don't tell me what my code should look like!" objection :-)

Jacob

@AntoniusBloch Its all on a switch so its never routed publicly

Murali Suriar

@voretaq7 pastebin.com/hh6EjdEC

Antonius Bloch

10:10 PM

@voretaq7 but that's actually a positive feature, when I'm trying to read your quirky code

=)

a pleasurable read: serverfault.com/questions/228925/…

voretaq7

@MuraliSuriar cool

Jacob

@AntoniusBloch referring to my link?

Antonius Bloch

hah no promoting my own question

I have to move an IIS server

Jacob

@AntoniusBloch I posted an answer :)

Antonius Bloch

awesome

the problem with that one is dnscmd doesn't edit

Murali Suriar

10:14 PM

Gah. Why does twiki suck so much. :(

Antonius Bloch

but I guess I could mass delete and then drop them back in

voretaq7

@AntoniusBloch you could dump, edit, and then do a quick delete/re-import

IDK of any way to bulk-edit in Windows DNS tho -- it does suck.

Murali Suriar

@AntoniusBloch presumably there's a DNS WMI provider for powershell?

Or is it not available on server 2k3?

Antonius Bloch

@MuraliSuriar I don't do that much windows, I assume it's a windows cmd line except useful???

@MuraliSuriar I mean I've never used powershell

Murali Suriar

I've not done Windows for a good long while, but yes.

Powershell is superb.

Really really well done.

Provides you access to pretty much everything in the OS via a decent command line.

Everything that's thrown around is an object (or a set of them), so you can invoke methods, run them through maps, etc etc

Antonius Bloch

10:22 PM

@voretaq7 hmm that sounds promising I'm going to look at that dnsdump.cmd

Murali Suriar

@AntoniusBloch if that doesn't work out, have a look at code.msdn.microsoft.com/dnsshell

lynxman

10:44 PM

hey guys waves

Jacob

@lynxman hello

lynxman

hey Jacob ;)

Jacob

@lynxman My blog is up now to decide on what the first post shall be any suggestions?

►

lynxman

I would go for this one youtube.com/watch?v=1EBfxjSFAxQ

I love the IT Crowd :)

Jacob

►

lynxman

10:56 PM

team... team... team...

My personal favorite

my fav is this one

11:11 PM

Thats funny

lynxman

:)

Antonius Bloch

@voretaq7 thanks! the dump edit restore worked great

Jacob

@AntoniusBloch Yeah, I thought of that also, why not keep BIND for DNS :) I am a windows guy and I like BIND much more than M DNS

Antonius Bloch

soon

if we use this cpanel I'll probably end up using whatever DNS server it uses

I'm slowly trying to get this guy off windows

but then we end up supporting crap like cpanel

Jacob

@AntoniusBloch It uses BIND with their POSx7 interface

Antonius Bloch

11:20 PM

I can't win

lynxman

@AntoniusBloch Having to choose between cPanel and Windows is like having to choose between a kick in the face or in the groin

Antonius Bloch

POS ... are you joking

Jacob

@AntoniusBloch you never can.... What does this client do?

@AntoniusBloch Piece of sh** thats what it is...

Antonius Bloch

I usually don't talk specifics about clients

I'm a security nut

but they do a little web hosting

on a crappy custom ASP app

Jacob

@AntoniusBloch You run a hosting company and you can't function with out a GUI?

Antonius Bloch

11:23 PM

cpanel will be better than supporting that piece

Jacob

Sounds like a Web Dev

Antonius Bloch

lol I don't use a gui

Jacob

Which I was(am)

@AntoniusBloch I meant them hehe

Antonius Bloch

but my client has this windows infrastructure

it's not their core focus

Jacob

@AntoniusBloch once you get sucked in... you can't escape

Antonius Bloch

11:24 PM

but they do it as a value add for clients

Jacob

@AntoniusBloch They're web devs aren't they.... I'd look at Webmin

Antonius Bloch

I'd make them move to 2008

Jacob

@AntoniusBloch They run 2003?

Antonius Bloch

but I'm sure it will break their classic ASP

pounds head

yeah

Jacob

@AntoniusBloch they have some serious issues...

They need a full time IT person or 2 really it appears

Antonius Bloch

11:26 PM

lot's of vendor lock in

true dat

Jacob

They can hire me... my rates are reasonable :)

Antonius Bloch

send a resume to sherman@twocell.com (me)

you'll probably regret it though

Jacob

haha I'm 15 I don't have a resume(yet) though my time at SF really tells me I should make one...

Antonius Bloch

make one and send it to me, if you haven't had much experience just give me an honest assessment of your skills and anything you have done work or not

Jacob

ok, Think I'll use Stackoverflow's Generator...

lynxman

11:33 PM

@Jacob It's a good age to start sysadmin jobs, my first professional one was at 17

that was way too long ago though

Antonius Bloch

lol

I don't know if I can throw him on the servers just yet

but I've got more projects than I can handle right now

talent > age

Jacob

Honestly People tell me that but people assume age= experience

lynxman

@Jacob Age just shows that you've seen more weird shit, that's pretty much about it

Antonius Bloch

age = pay

Jacob

@AntoniusBloch Very true

lynxman

11:37 PM

@AntoniusBloch it's sad but it's still like that

Antonius Bloch

I don't discount the experience that comes with age, but intelligence owns experience

Jacob

@AntoniusBloch :) If I got paid by IQ points....

lynxman

It would be an interesting experiment if you could be paid a bit like serverfault gives you points :)

alvosu

pay = county :(

Jacob

@lynxman I put in there my SF Rep not that people notice it.

Antonius Bloch

11:41 PM

@alvosu that's becoming less true for tech workers

@alvosu IF you speak good english

lynxman

exactly, working from home is becoming more and more common, with good pay based on talent, I like that

Antonius Bloch

@lynxman the problem with pay per performance is the management overhead

lynxman

@AntoniusBloch yeah, if it could only be automated

Jacob

Native english speakers bag on non native but English as a second language should earn you a raise...

Antonius Bloch

exactly

needs software

alvosu

11:42 PM

@Antonius Bloch in your country tech workers earn $400-500 per month?

Jacob

@alvosu I think thats a bit low?

Antonius Bloch

@alvosu I know programmers in India & Russia that are making 45-50k per year

@alvosu and they really aren't that good

@alvosu what country are you from?

alvosu

Russian

programmers not equal sysadm

Antonius Bloch

true

plus sysadmin doesn't really get outsourced too often

but then in America $500 doesn't get you an apartment

hmm what about mass editing IIS configs

alvosu

in Russian/Chelyabinsk rent apartment cost $200-300

Antonius Bloch

11:53 PM

+ you get leggy blondes

at least that's what my "internet research" tells me

alvosu

learn.iis.net/page.aspx/436/…

Antonius Bloch

I don't think windows 2003 does powershell

Jacob

@AntoniusBloch it does you have to install it.

ehh careers.stackoverflow.com/jacobjernigan

Antonius Bloch

@alvosu : serverfault.com/questions/228925/…

alvosu

windows 2003 support powershell

Jacob

11:58 PM

careers.stackoverflow.com/jacobjernigan There it is in all its glory

alvosu

use windows update to install powershell =)

Jacob

@alvosu not out of the box

@alvosu yeah, its a WU sort of thing

Antonius Bloch

I found a good answer: webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=555500

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