The Comms Room

@TylerShads <new head pops up>

My head has linux-braindamage-absorbing crumple zones.

I just got an invite to dzone.com/aboutmvb

@Gigili that's why I suggested them. I assume since they picked an odd-ass number like 11 it has to be prime.

But if there's no restriction why not every 10, 15, 30, 46, 60?
Or if we want a funky-ass number why not 6. 6 is a *perfect* number!

FUUUUUUUUU

(none of this is relevant to his question which is just as astonishing as "every 11 minutes" as a choice of update interval.)

goddamnit google!

Gigili

5:03 PM

@voretaq7 Chill out, we'll kill them all tonight.

that's better.

@Gigili nein. they must suffer first!

And they must explain that guy's funky behavior.

especially this part:
"More experimentation shows that when I have the HW clock around 20 minutes behind the system clock the 11-minute mode will set the HW clock to be exactly 30 minutes behind the system clock (!)"

Gigili

Wieso? what about pillow suffocation?

@voretaq7 remember to tune down the bad language etc.. :) let's remember what Iain taught us.

@pauska do you have a better word for it? :)

uh-oh.. EMC just posted a major advisory about faulty ssd disks

5:10 PM

@pauska They don't work when covered with concrete?

2

Yeah, they posted a world-wide advisory about not doing like Erik Paulsen did in Norway

"Dual SSD events can lead to data unavailability and potential data loss in RAID groups, Storage Pools, and in FAST Cache configurations. The issue is generally preceded by media errors occurring on the SSD disk drives. The media errors are related to an issue within the solid state disk drives. This issues will necessitate engineering procedures to recover the system."

@pauska Fix: Deal with it?

@pauska . . . "Our drives may fail. Tough rocks."

Nice. Stay Classy EMC.

tombull89

5:23 PM

@BartSilverstrim (slighty late to the party) There's another VBox release? What's this now, 4.1.8?

@tombull89 yup

just went through the log files, no errors here.. phew

tombull89

in The Bridge, 6 mins ago, by tombull89

Two weeks off work over Christmas, an early payslip and a steam sale is not going to mix well...

3

TCP Port Service Multiplexer

The TCP Port Service Multiplexer (TCPMUX) is a little-used Internet protocol defined in RFC 1078. The specification describes a multiplexing service that may be accessed with a network protocol to contact any one of a number of available TCP services of a host on a single, well-known port number. Description A host may connect to a server that supports the TCPMUX protocol on TCP port 1. The host then sends a name of the service required, followed by the carriage return and line feed characters (CRLF). The server replies with a '+' or '-' character and an optional message, followed by CRL...

(tcp port 1)

I wonder what kind of genious who thought this was a great idea

@tombull89 ANY steam sale never ends well for my wallet

5:30 PM

@pauska does anyone actually RUN tcpmux?

@voretaq7 I'm having problems understanding why anyone would

@pauska The same genii that thought RPC/Portmap was a good idea?

@pauska I think my brain just exploded.

but apparently "M. Lottor" from SRI-NIC thought so

@pauska The first pancake is never the best one.

5:31 PM

@voretaq7 I'm so happy that many MS products are moving away from RPC..

listening to your favorite british youtube commentator sing santa baby for charity is such a hilarious experience

@pauska and to rpc over http(s)

@TylerShads I have a more hilarious experience.... stand by.

@TylerShads youtube.com/watch?v=ZThrYCy9Zzo <-- Jackie Beat sings "Santa's Baby" - Probably NSFW

yeah, gonna wait on that one

List of TCP and UDP port numbers

This is a list of Internet socket port numbers used by protocols of the Transport Layer of the Internet Protocol Suite for the establishment of host-to-host communications. Originally, these port numbers were used by the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and the User Datagram Protocol (UDP), but are used also for the Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP), and the Datagram Congestion Control Protocol (DCCP). SCTP and DCCP services usually use a port number that matches the service of the corresponding TCP or UDP implementation if they exist. The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (...

►

5:34 PM

its a funny list to read.. not much being used there anymore

SFW ^

@TylerShads yours, or @pauska's. Because the TCP port list is most certainly NSFW.

Port 0: reserved

I'm going to make all of my protocols run on port 0

then forward them to port 1 to be mux'd

@MDMarra A lot of TCP stacks don't even SUPPORT port 0.

@voretaq7 mine, im assuming

5:36 PM

@voretaq7 Find me one

@MDMarra Winsock.

:-)

Someone said sock?

7

@pauska winsock. It's already dirty and crusty, you don't want it.

@voretaq7 Does it have googly eyes?

I use the TCP Port list when interviewing. "What is port 3389 usually used for?"

5:38 PM

fine markdown, you win this round.
(^&%@^@%$*&^#&%$@&$)

@TomOConnor In my environment LDAP port forwarding.

I wonder how dumb this sounds. But to me, an application that has been using a port for more than 10 years should be made official. It becomes almost common knowledge at a point. Example: AIM is listed as unofficial even though aol itself (the abomination it was) has been our for years. Though I suppose it is still a poor example becuse AIM is basically dead at this point

@voretaq7 noob

@voretaq7 You would be different, wouldn't you.

@TylerShads I still use AIM on rare occasions.

@TomOConnor @MDMarra We don't do windows here

@voretaq7 Exactly. =) So what IS a WBT server anyway?

5:41 PM

@AdrianK WomBaT?

So is Microsoft actually doing anything with the Skype purchase?

@AdrianK Windows Booty Time

@jscott Sky.NET

2

@TylerShads Ballmer?

@TylerShads In my official persona as a zealot, I would've said Windows Blows Tons, but I'm not feeling it this morning.

5:43 PM

I like "Windows Booty Time" as a service name. With a dancing Ballmer as its "please wait" cursor.

@voretaq7 needs more dubstep

@MDMarra I wish, at least that could be useful.

@TylerShads startup sound.

I'm assuming some super awkward live.com videochat answer to facetime/ichat

Q: NAS device with USB read capability?

* push button * WUMB WUMB WUMB WUMB WUMB WUMB WUMB WUMB WUMB WUMB WUMB WUMB WUMB WUMB WUMB WUMB WUMB WUMB WUMB WUMB WUMB WUMB WUMB WUMB WUMB WUMB WUMB WUMB WUMB WUMB WUMB WUMB WUMB WUMB WUMB WUMB WUMB WUMB WUMB WUMB * login screen*

@jscott have it mirror the terribad xbox interface

Bart De Vos

5:46 PM

0

I have a Linux based device which has network and USB, but write speed over the network is very slow. I'm wondering if a network storage device exists which allows write to a drive/share over the network, and reads of the devices/share over a USB connection? This would let me write files over t...

What? How? I don't even...

Why does MS have to change their service names so often? The only thing I found about WBT is that it's kinda-sorta RDP.

@BartDeVos what is this...i wha?

@TomOConnor dang, why didnt I do that today..

@pauska do what, sorry?

@TomOConnor ask stuff like "what is TCP port X used for" on the interviews I had today

5:55 PM

@pauska Oooh.

@TomOConnor I think he means why wasn't he a cat in a car with paddington wearing a santa hat

@jscott No idea. Would be cool if they could integrate it with Lync calls, for large conferences etc

@pauska I have precious little use for supervisors who grill applicants on the definitions of obscure or unused ports.

@AdrianK mate, I wasnt talking about asking "What is the most used DECnet port?"

more like tom's example - what TCP port does RDP normally use and so on

@pauska True. I suppose that's more useful in a Windows shop.

5:59 PM

Yeah.. if someone doesn't know 22, 25, 80, 443, 389, 514.. then it should raise an eyebrow.

but we found our guy anyways.. I feel a bit of pressure lifted from my shoulders

its going to be GREAT to load over some of my tasks

@pauska yeah. I need to find a junior.. ASAFP.

@ShaneMadden 514 is optional. Syslogging is for people that expect problems, meaning they aren't confident in their work.

I don't log shit, because I know it's done awesomely

@MDMarra Still amazes my that syslog was only done in UDP though.

@AdrianK one more reason to forget about it

6:01 PM

@AdrianK TCP too

grep $number /etc/services

@ShaneMadden When did they change it to do TCP? Last time I took a class, it was still a UDP-only service.

Dunno if the TCP implementation is kosher with the founding fathers of syslog, but as long as the internet supreme court doesn't do originalism...

That'll save me a metric buttload of work later this year when I build out unified logging.

@pauska Yeah, our Director is asking about "enterprise" voice/video solutions, AD auth/integration/etc... We use Google Apps Voice and Video now, but he wants an answer for interaction with outside users. sigh.

6:04 PM

@jscott TANDBERG TO THE RESCUE

@jscott AD for outside users? I either I'm missing out on a lot of AD functionality, or wtf.

@jscott We're going to deploy Lync for that (lync web app)

@AdrianK /shrug, I know rsyslog does a TCP connection when you use @@host instead of @host. Most network devices and such are just UDP though.

@84104 You don't run your AD in the DMZ and open it to everyone?

@MDMarra Tandberg

6:05 PM

(and splunk can accept a TCP connection, so that's all that matters to me)

@ShaneMadden Yeah, my effort to move us to managed switches crashed and burned. We're going back to DLink unmanaged units, so that's not really a problem.

(and it's expensive as FCK)

@pauska that's what I said

@AdrianK Ouch. My condolences.

@MDMarra lucky with the timer there

6:05 PM

@MDMarra Ha! Yeah, he seems to think that because Skype is "free", there's something more we can do at no cost[1]. 1 - That is not counting the thousands wasted trying to make a product do something it was not designed to do.

We have a couple border controllers collecting dust

MikeyB

@AdrianK You poor bastard.

@84104 Please don't get me started on that...

@MikeyB Could be worse, it's only about 300 ports.

"We're going back to DLink unmanaged units, so that's not really a problem."

so that's not really a problem

6:06 PM

@AdrianK It could be worse. You could have 40 8 ports daisy chained

D-link

unmanaged switches

not a problem...

@pauska At least they're switches?

@pauska the syslog part isn't a problem, cuz they don't log.

Well, not really a problem.

@AdrianK They don't log. I'm on board.

6:07 PM

ah.

everything is fine then

@AdrianK You are choosing to use dlink? Ugh, the last guy here got those for us, withing two years every single one of them (8 48-port switches) had failed) with either bad fans or power supplies.

just buy products that have absolutely no logic or reporting or management, and you'll stop using time setting up reporting, management etc

@MDMarra Are you against logging because you have a tree for a face?

3

@Zoredache The two paduans like them and the boss liked them when he was the paduan, so it's tough to argue it even if we lose a port on average every 12 weeks.

The "D" is for... um.. I don't have anything witty. (does the "D" actually stand for something?)

6:08 PM

@ShaneMadden D(ead)-Link?

2

MikeyB

@ShaneMadden Dearth-Link

[D]ropping traffic?

@ShaneMadden The D is for Derp. The rest is also Derp.

2

@84104 Alright, that's funnier.

@AdrianK tell them to learn to love HP, they are relatively inexpensive, and people seem to like t hem a lot better.

After all, they probably have all used an HP printer and liked that in the past.

6:10 PM

@Zoredache I wish. Cheap is good here since our total annual IT budget is 30k aside from salaries.

I don't get it. Is there anything about an unmanaged switch to like or dislike? Pretty much the criteria is "does it switch packets?"

@ShaneMadden On the bad switches the answer is "sometimes".

@84104 You got me.

I have a tree for a face, so I can't do syslogging :(

@ShaneMadden well if it fails frequently, that matters a lot.

@ShaneMadden The primary issue is that the 2960s I got are 100Mbit at the user ports. The paduans convinced the boss that the DLINK 48port 1000 units are much faster since they popped the Ciscos in without any configuration and they bombed.

6:12 PM

@84104 Yeah, I've got a good managed-Linksys horror story. It managed to create itself an internal broadcast storm. Flooded all outbound links, with no inbound traffic at all.

And i have too many fires to fight to really bother fighting this battle right now.

@AdrianK Does DLink list what their max backplane speed it? I'll bet my bonnet that you can't get anywhere close to saturating even 50% of those ports at 1GbE

@MDMarra The list it as full port speed on all ports, but that's not the limitation. Our servers are old enough that they can't feed that anyway. When it comes down to it, our workstations don't either because they're just LTSP terminals.

It just doesn't require a 1000Mbit link to re-draw X/Windows screens.

@AdrianK no, what X11 requires is low-latency and low jitter...

@Zoredache exactly. I'm just starting to get them to understand that Bandwidth !== Throughput.

6:21 PM

@MDMarra I read that as "I'll bet my botnet"

I'll bet that too

@voretaq7 had a bonnet pic for a bit

Ah well. the command has come down from above to find a way to return them, so that's what I have to do.

better than the unemployment line.

Peter Grace

$$$ > ...

Q: Does Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard only support 1 connected remote administrator?

@AdrianK I bet the unemployment office isn't even wired with DLink gear.

Seriously, reading comprehension should not be this hard

0

I can't seem to be able to have multiple administrators connect to Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard. Each time a different administrator logs in, it takes the current session away from the user and gives it to them and boots the original user from the server. I've also tried connecting 1 instance...

windows-server-2008-r2 remote-desktop remote-connection limitations

@MDMarra there is that.

6:30 PM

that raises a question

what do you guys normally do - delegate one admin account per sysadmin or just put the sysadmin's user account into domain admins (or where applicable)?

I'm leaning towards the first one..

@pauska Second account/admin

I don't want to have to freak out if someone's machine gets infected while they're logged in as someone in Domain Admin or local admin on a bunch of servers

or if they log on to a terminal server and install/do something bad

ya

our current lead admin has put all of us into domain admins

A second account also gives the person an extra few seconds and a prompt to really think about what they're doing again

6:32 PM

I gotta admit - it makes it alot easier to run the remote management tools from my own win7 workstation.. but its not exactly secure

I just put _a at the end of the regular user name

@pauska just right click > Run As on the consoles

Run them as your admin account

ah, right

It's like sudo, but for Windows.

can one save that second username so that you wont have to right click every time?

I have a console that I authored that has all of the most commonly used snapins. I pin it to the superbar and launch is with run as at the beginning of each work day and just minimize it when im not using it

6:34 PM

a superbar?

@pauska nope, but the authorization doesn't expire. You can leave a run-as launched window open all day minimized and continue to use it

superbar is the official term for microsoft's new taskbar in windows 7

I wish I was making that up

oreally.

@MDMarra In windows 8 it's the superduperbar.

weird - I can only choose "run as administrator" here.. it wont let me specify the account

shift+right click

6:35 PM

might be because I despise UAC on my own computers and have it disabled

or that

god, that is a WONDERFUL trick Mark

thank you

I do my best

Once in a while I'm good for doing something other than making fun of @Holocryptic's kidney stones

@pauska You can also make a cmd as Admin a desktop context menu option:

!! tell me where

I dont even know how to put cmd on that menu.. I'm such a noob when it comes to customizing windows.. win7 made me dumb. I just left it at defaults and carried on.

Win7 (not tested in Vista) The reg key HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\DesktopBackground\Shell is for the right-click desktop options.

Add something like:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\DesktopBackground\Shell\cmd (admin)\command]
@="C:\\windows\\system32\\runas /user:domain\\YourADminAccount cmd.exe"

The cmd option above that just launches an unprivileged cmd.

hm

6:38 PM

You can control the appearance (position, icon, etc) in the menu with the following.

it would be cool to launch a new explorer like that with ad perms aswell

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\DesktopBackground\Shell\cmd (admin)]
"Position"="Bottom"
"Icon"="C:\\windows\\system32\\cmd.exe"
@=""

Holocryptic

@mdmarra you give yourself too much credit

yeah I understand

@pauska You can't, but you can launch individual control panel applets from an elevated command prompt like appwiz.cpl if you need to uninstall something and you're not logged in as admin and you don't want to log out

6:40 PM

@MDMarra I was more thinking about being somwhere deep on our file server without being authenticated as ad admin.. right click the folder and select "Launch new explorer with admin perms" or something like that

ahhh got ya

I don't have any trick to make that less painless haha

@pauska Shift + Ctrl + Right click the start menu, select "exit explorer"

@MDMarra I made one for you, I don't think I ever had one.

@voretaq7 thats what i meant

Launch explorer from the elevated cmd.

6:44 PM

@jscott Doesn't that choke and die?

@MDMarra ?

I didn't think windows would let you launch that with elevated privs

Really? Seems to work here:

Zypher

@MDMarra it'll work

at least under win7

XP used to shit a brick

@Zypher I beg to differ

Zypher

6:46 PM

but then you could just elevate iexplore.exe and browse the file system :)

It will launch explorer, but not in an elevated context

Zypher

@MDMarra change explorer to iexplore :)

@Zypher Not what we were talking about :)

That does work

Explorer does not

oic

6:48 PM

@MDMarra His reading comprehension isn't that bad. You are somewhat wrong in your blanket assertion that you cannot have multiple users connecting to a terminal server. Depending on the state of the policies, it is possible to have multiple connections, but it will act badly.

I think Windows 2003 defaulted differently then 2008

we used to have problems with multiple "administrator" sessions getting stuck on 2003

had to log in via the console to throw them out

I remember often seeing the "choose a session" dialog, where the multiple logins where disconnected with different screen resolution etc

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/12/stolen-iphone-your-imessages-may-still-be-going-to-the-wrong-place.ars

^ Well done Apple. And by "well done" I mean "The rest of the IT industry have these things called "security" and "privacy". You may want to take time out of your busy schedule of cocking up itunes match to have a look at them

hahah

nice reply at the bottom from the apple

It's not an issue. Oh, and disable iMessage (which you can't - muahahah).

stunning, isn't it

The solution is simple. Just don't get your iPhone stolen. Is this so hard?

7:04 PM

in some parts of the UK that's pretty difficult, to be honest ;-)

technorati.com/technology/article/steve-jobs-so-dont-hold-it

@pauska wow.... nice epic security fail right there. Completely epic.

Did you guys read the "bad weather" forecast for 2012 by some bank in europe? I can't remember the name right now

Am I miss-reading the dates, or did this guy somehow manage to answer his question at 15:03 before he asked it at 15:13. serverfault.com/questions/188632/…

nope... @pauska ...?

7:09 PM

They basically described the worst possible scenarious for the international financial market next year.. apple going down 50% is one of them

Oct 7 vs Oct 11?

@Zoredache Either I'm misreading them too or you've found Doctor Who

the other one is norway turning into the new switzerland (as in every country putting their money here)

ok i misread them too ;-)

on checking again jscott is right

month, day, 'yearABBR damndest formatting...

7:10 PM

why would it be bad if everyone's money went to norway?

@jscott doh, the times were so close, I forgot to look at the date.

@RobMoir Think of all the socks one could buy!

I think the UK govt' are counting on us being the home for all that money

heh... there would be socks everywhere. And still not a pair to be found

@RobMoir Oh don't be so sure. The pair could certainly be found, you just may not want to.

too true

7:12 PM

Lemme know if that dupe target helps @MDMarra.

Too tired to write another "use Restricted Groups" answer.

I wonder what people use for creating default user profiles on 2008 r2 terminal servers

the lack of documentation on this subject is quite astonishing..

@pauska Why should it be any better than LDAP?

it actually looks like I have to sysprep and use images for our terminal servers

@pauska You don't create them. Microsoft strongly suggests you don't do that. Instead you post-customize using scripts/policies.

@pauska support.microsoft.com/kb/973289 - Note Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup\CopyProfile setting in unattend.xml is the only supported method for customizing default user

yeah, so we basically have to deploy new terminal servers with WDS

7:20 PM

@Zoredache I didn't say that you couldn't have multiple connections. I said that you could have multiple concurrent connections from the same user account

AFAIK you never could

@jscott what dupe target

Q: Assign log on as local admin to domain account

0

What I would like to do is grant permission for a domain account to log on to any server/workstation and be a local administrator with having to add this account to domain admin group? This account only needs to be able to read folder sizes on all folders on a workstation/server. Is there a G...

active-directory group-policy groups

@Zoredache Just "listening" to you guys convinces me that we'd probably need to double the IT staff here if we moved to Windows desktops around here.

6?! Is it Perl 6?!

@jscott Ohhh, thanks

:)

@MDMarra that contradicts my experience. On a clean Windows 2003 install, I have seen multiple connections as the some account connected to a terminal server.

Iain

7:22 PM

@jscott 5.8.8

@AdrianK I would love being able to go to all Linux. The biggest road-block is probably Exchange.

@Zoredache On 08, though?

@Zoredache Yeah, we don't have a solution for that either. Half of it being done from within our agency's web-app and the other half with Google Calendar on PC & Androids.

I didn't think it behaved that way in 2003

It absolutely doesn't in 2008

No, not on 2008, it seems to be a lot more picky.

7:24 PM

I don't have any 2003 boxes (lucky me) to test on, but unless one user used /console (or whatever the switch it), I didn't think that was possible there either.

Maybe it was a bug or something, but I have seen it happen under some conditions. Though we mostly have per-user admin accounts, so it didn't happen often. But very rarely, I would disconnect from one system, and attempt to reconnect as myself from another system over RDP and got a new session, instead of re-connecting as I expected.

We have no 2003 boxes left either, and I don't care enough to build one to try and figure out what was going on.

Yeah I think I remember being able to have one session open as me through normal TS, as well as the /console|/admin connection in 03

Like this? No /admin or /console

Isn't Session 1 the console session?

Session 0

7:31 PM

Apparently, I'm all sorts of confused

@MDMarra In big boy computers (and Windows) counting starts at 0.

@ScottPack I thought 0 was for under the hood shiz

Wat's going on nutrikidsadmin?!

@MDMarra It is, on 2k8

TCP/IP port assignments don't count from 0, is it not a big boy?

:D

7:33 PM

@MDMarra UDP does.

Now I'm probably gonna have to restart that box. Hope you're all happy for the little demo. ;)

we have one 2003 server left.. let me check

err nope, someone buried it

we have no 2003 servers :P

Lucky you.

Hope to be there sometime in 2012.

We've less than 200 XP client stations (out of ~3950), so that's looking up as well.

we also only have one 2008 non-r2 server

I cringe every time I have to log off the server, afraid of hitting the shut down button every time

First week on the job, the DBA did exactly that. Was hilarious.

Jeff Ferland

7:44 PM

I hate leading zeroes in my data.

@JeffFerland Not as much as Excel does.

@jscott Cool. There's still a few Win98 holdouts around here that are fighting me tooth & nail about switching. =)

Jeff Ferland

@jscott I hate putting ZIP codes into Excel -.-

@AdrianK 98? What? What are they running on there?

@jscott Pinball

7:46 PM

@84104 +1, Alright, you win.

@jscott RDP to the 2k8 server and an old Thunderbird.

Compaq d320s, a couple HP Brio 3xx, and 2 IBM Intellistations left to be ripped out.

it's ridiculous.

WesleyDavid

3

@WesleyDavid uh

@WesleyDavid But that will ensure legacy application compatibility.

is that real?..

7:50 PM

@WesleyDavid I didn't get it until I looked at the title bar. WTF^3

@pauska No kidding: that's exactly what the district had config'd when I got here.

They thought you could just use GP to "lock" down users.

WesleyDavid

faildesk.net/2011/12/19/…

@jscott ................................

Jacob

Howdy Everyone

I was tough enough to explain why you didn't want Domain Users in the local Administrators group, let alone Domain Admin.

7:56 PM

I can feel the urge rising to go on a rant about how kerberos is not a replacement for LDAP. Not there yet. Maybe the break will cause it to subside.