The Comms Room - 2011-08-15 (page 2 of 3)

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3:00 PM

The Nubby SysAdmin: Check out the Talentopoly Podcast!

posted on August 15, 2011 by Wesley David

An Introduction to Talentopoly In case you haven’t heard of it, there is a new community dedicated to the IT trifecta: Developers, Administrators and Designers. If you don’t think designers are within the realm of IT, then you probably don’t work much with the interwebs. The community is Talentopoly.com and it has a few key points: Share content with [...]

There are FAR worse patent trolls in the world than Apple, 'Intellectual Ventures' being the worst/biggest

I don't think that Apple is being a troll

I think they're trying to squash competition

Bart Silverstrim

talentopoly.com looks vaguely familiar...

Yeah; you're not a Troll if you're producing something and simply trying to squash your competition.

Think they can get the iPhone5 out before the injunction expires?

3:05 PM

You're a Troll if you're only profit (or main objective) is to extort money from companies producing a product which includes a patent you hold (but do not yourself produce).

I think that'd clear up a large part of our Patent Problems; your Patent isn't valid until you actually produce something that uses it.

@wfaulk What about the ipad3/pro?

or that, yeah

@ChrisS our patent system used to require a working prototype.

that requirement was deemed too burdensome.

3:20 PM

@wfaulk the Thunderbolt port would be nice, thats what I'm waiting for on the Ipad

@Jacob next next gen.

@voretaq7 Ipad3/pro is rumored to have it

I'm not sure if a prototype is enough in my opinion... If you aren't actively involved in bringing the patent to market then you shouldn't be able to prevent others from doing so. Patents would still be valuable insomuch as you could sell them if you don't produce yourself; and the buying company could use it as protection from competition.

Bart Silverstrim

I don't think you need a prototype to get a patent.

You just need to be able to blueprint it or describe it.

@BartSilverstrim not anymore. The original patent system required it though.

3:25 PM

@BartSilverstrim Right; Vortaq just pointed that out. I'd argue that the previous system didn't go far enough.

Bart Silverstrim

Sorry. Jumping around.

the requirement was dropped very early on b/c the patent office couldn't handle all the physical shit showing up

Bart Silverstrim

Among windows. Not actually jumping.

Anyone see the phone airbag/jet patent from Amazon?

@BartSilverstrim lies. We can all hear you jumping on your desk!

3:26 PM

@voretaq7 I wouldn't say you can't patent something without a prototype or making products; it just wouldn't be enforceable without production...

Well, I just punched that vendor in the dick. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

So you could still be in the business of dreaming up these patents; filing; then selling them to the highest bidder. I'm good with that.

Bart Silverstrim

The patent office can't handle all the non-physical shit showing up now.

They just rubberstamp things they don't understand.

Then wait for someone to file a lawsuit or claim to re-evaluate XYZ patent to sort it out.

haha ya

bastards

IS GOOD SYSTEM! VERY EXPEDIENT ISSUANCE OF PATENT!
I PATENT USE OF WORD PATENT NOW! CHARGE GOVERNMENT FOR EVERY ONE ISSUED.

3:30 PM

On an unrelated note, I just snagged a new 11.6" macbook air over the weekend.

I'm pretty impressed

What? If people can patent the linked list (feld.com/wp/archives/2010/03/… !) why can't I patent using the word patent to describe patents?

@MarkM how's the battery life, and can it be a desktop replacement yet?

I get about 4-5ish hours of normal use out of it

I havent hooked it up to my 26" 1920x1080 monitor yet, so I'm not sure how it handles the high res, but im really impressed with the performance.

The SSD is sooooooo fast. I got the i5 1.6GHz 4GB RAM, and 128GB SSD

And I'm really blown away by the performance for the size.

mmh, i need at least 8GB RAM though. so many browser windows...

ha

Bart Silverstrim

I have the MBP 13 inch and really like it. No SSD, but it can get 7-8 hours of battery life out of it (if not pressing the drive or turning up LED backlight all the way)

They squeeze power consumption in ridiculous ways to get that battery life but it'll work for quite awhile.

3:36 PM

I thought about getting a 13" MBA for the extra battery but if i was going to do that i'd just assume get the MBP

Bart Silverstrim

Battery life drops madly if you...ya know...use the drive or do prolonged activity with physical parts (like...using the drive.) On the other hand, typing documents, email, browsing, etc. will let it happily hum along for a workday.

Or Flash. Flash animations in the browser will kill battery life.

@BartSilverstrim My 15" MBP is either 2 or 3 years old, still has a good 4-5 hour battery life if I dim my screen

4-5 hours of battery is more than enough for me. I can't conceive of a time that I'd be away from a plug for over 5 hours and need to do work

There's a car adapter for trips, airplane adapter for planes, im never at an airport 5 hours early, and the rest of the time im sprawled across my couch using the reclining footrest as a desk.

@MarkM 4 hours is my minimum (enough to watch a long movie and have a cushion of power)

Bart Silverstrim

Pretty much. I've been really pleased with my MBP. The air looks nice too except for the memory limitation.

But it has the SSD drive standard.

3:40 PM

Nothing worse than sitting through Titanic only to have your battery go flat right as Kate is about to push Leo's frozen lifeless corpse into the ocean.
"I'll never let go Jack.... oh hey rescuers! Don't want to be seen with *you*! ::shove::"

Bart Silverstrim

Could just loop that scene.

The fact that the RAM is soldered onto the mobo sucks, but 4GB is still plenty for me.

@MarkM 4GB is plenty for what the Air is designed for

but I like to run VMs on my laptop for demos

If I wanted a video editing machine, i wouldnt have an AIR. For rich web content, remote desktop to my office, and random app store games, etc it's fine

It even runs TF2 no sweat with reasonable graphics settings.

Bart Silverstrim

Purty much. Desktop replacements are MBP's. General notebook/student/light usage is MBA.

"I got my MBA from Apple."

3:44 PM

haha

I have a mini in my home office (otherwise known as the corner of my livingroom that my desk is in in my 1 bedroom apartment), and an air for my notebook, an aging lenovo x60 that I'm thinking about chucking on craigs list, and a homemade shuttle HTPC hooked up to my livingroom TV. The fiancee has a white late 2008 macbook and is bugging me to get her an imac.

Bernie "i done made off with your money" Madoff got his from my alma mater.
(It's not something we like to talk about)

Part of me wants to tell her to just make use of my mini that's hooked up to a 26" screen, but part of me doesnt want her going anywhere near any of my technology

I have enough amex points to get an ipad 2 for free from amazon. i might just do that to appease her.

@MarkM get her a new MBP or an Air

she doesn't want an iMac. NOBODY wants an iMac.

Yeah, I know.

people just buy 'em because they're sexy.

3:49 PM

I think an ipad 2 might distract her enough to forget she wants a new machine. For what she uses her computer for, an eMac would be fine.

(plus, I'd get to play with it)

I think we got our designer an iMac

I liked my iMac until the kids knocked it off the table

@KyleBrandt gasp

Expensive paperweight now

@Iain: Very happy to see the snark issue brought up

3:54 PM

@KyleBrandt x2

@ITHedgeHog insurance?

@Jacob That would A) mean paying the excess and B) sky rocket my premium on home contents insurance

It's easier to live without =)

@SpacemanSpiff Re: binding 2 IPs on one cisco interface - ip address x.x.x.x x.x.x.x secondary

user image

user 'mailq' may just be after some form of editor/alerter badge - it's ever 5 minutes!

@ITHedgeHog that's a shame, could you not get it fixed? wife and daughter have imacs and love them

4:04 PM

@KyleBrandt yeah, a couple of things tripped my limit so I thought I'd bring it up. I think Rob Moir and Mark Henderson are right with 'battle weary' and take some time off.

Bart Silverstrim

Snark issue?

Must be on meta?

13

Q: Getting a bit too snarky

Can people stop being quite so snarky when answering questions please? There has been a noticeable increase in answers that begin with snarky/preachy statements followed by an answer, as well as generally snarky answers. Whilst this may appeal to the baser sysadmin instincts and may get somethin...

@Chopper3 I probably could, but as it is - I'm using it as a reason to save up and buy a new mac ;)

Bart Silverstrim

Ah...(reading the link)

Is there a way to aggregate flagged-for-rudeness type questions/answers?

Maybe it's a pattern, maybe there's a way to contact and warn users automatically if they're regular contributors.

Maybe it is just the "battle weary" symptoms.

Bart Silverstrim

4:22 PM

I don't know how much of a problem it has been lately (the snark issue.) If there have been complaints/etc. or what the signal to noise ratio for it has been.

@BartSilverstrim oh it definitely is -- The regulars in here are the snarkiest answerers, because we see so much utter crap

cgi.ebay.com/Unreleased-PROTOTYPE-Apple-Macbook-Pro-15-3G-Dat-/…

3g MB anyone

Bart Silverstrim

@Voretaq7: in other words the regulars are the biggest violators because they've become frustrated at the regular slinging of problems.

@BartSilverstrim plus like @Iain said it amuses us and appeals to our baser instincts.

Bart Silverstrim

Thought that's what chat was for? :-)

4:24 PM

I'm not sure where I stand on it - Snark is a grand tradition of system administration and I'm certainly one of the offenders with my "well DON'T DO THAT, but now that you did here's how you fix it" answers

Bart Silverstrim

New SF feature: Automatically pinning reminders viewable just to the upper-rep people as they post comments and answers asking, "Review your text for professional context..." :-)

I don't really see the excuse for the snark (herein referred to as being a prick). There are downvotes, close votes, and the choice to not answer a question. All of those are better choices than being a prick to someone.

Bart Silverstrim

Frustration, probably.

And if you are a prick to people on a regular basis, that makes you a _______. (Hint: Starts P and ends with K). The reason why is irrelevant

Bart Silverstrim

...tomtom?

:-)

4:27 PM

What would help for >10k users would be an extensive series of pre-written answers to lots of the types of questions/answers that wear us down - I reckon 20 pre-answers would hit >90% of those

Bart Silverstrim

Auto flagging that points to a specific FAQ?

@Chopper3: I think that is silly. Let new people answer those questions and practice their skills

@Chopper3 That's what "Close as Duplicate" is supposed to give us, but doesn't as it's not always an "exact" duplicate

ok

Anyone notice the MacBook 3G prototype for the low price of 30,000 USD?

cgi.ebay.com/Unreleased-PROTOTYPE-Apple-Macbook-Pro-15-3G-Dat-/…

4:29 PM

Generally if I've answered the same question about 10 times I stop answering it for at least a few weeks (usually I look at the question, sigh, debate posting an answer, realize the snark level would make the asker cry & close the windows)

Fairly often, someone chimes in on a bad question with "Your question is bad for X reason - change it to be Y for it to be ok, and read the FAQ" - that covers a lot of those cases

@voretaq7: Yes, that totally makes sense. Everyone goes through stages in their careers. If you have answered basic question "X?" n times, and are tired of the variations, then you are past that stage. But hopefully there are other people who are not and would enjoy answering it

Or just close it as a dupe

However, if if there are just no interesting questions to answer and only basic ones that is a problem

My standard for snark is it's not harmful if it helps them solve their problem, or points them at the reason their problem isn't what they think it is, and is generally inoffensive and not *OMFG YOU'RE AN IDIOT*
Part of being a sysadmin is being able to take a good-natured ribbing at the hands of your peers when you do something stupid like delete the files you just restored from a backup at 4 AM after being up since 3 AM the previous day. (Not like I ever did anything like that. no. Never. Well maybe just once.)

who's the 'virtualbox' user 1138's talks about on meta?

and of course if it's not going to make the asker cry -- I've stopped myself from posting a lot of answers because they were too mean

Bart Silverstrim

4:34 PM

We're debating what it means to be nice. There's gotta be some form of funny mixed into this. Or sad irony.

@voretaq7: I would except that. The only issue is that maybe people than take that as an example and cross that line

@voretaq7: I don't see anything wrong with the posts you cited in your answer

@KyleBrandt I think my response to "HALP! I'M BEING DDOS'D!" was toe-on-the-line if not maybe a tad over it

@KyleBrandt Snark being in the eye of the beholder is the trick. Those were very helpful answers, but some people posting questions feel that they're beyond reproach.

@BartSilverstrim Nice means hooking the user up to the HIGH VOLTAGE panel so they die quickly, rather than the LOW VOLTAGE panel where they suffer.

@ShaneMadden some people answering questions feel the same :(

4:42 PM

@Iain Fair point.

Bart Silverstrim

That's not nice, @voretaq7, that's merciful.

What are you talking about? We're flawless gods! *trips over power cable*
FUCK. Nobody saw that, right?

2

There is being playful and then there is being disrespectful. Voretaq's answer come of to me as being playful

@BartSilverstrim no, merciful is using the DC panel (so their muscles all contract and they can't scream). Well it's merciful to my ears!

I'm sure I have worse ones, I just grabbed 3 off random pages from my history.
I couldn't find any of my answers that basically boiled down to "You have good ideas but not the skill to implement them. Seek. Professional. Help. (and maybe learn from the professional you hire)" but I've always considered those borderline myself

Bart Silverstrim

4:46 PM

I think the difference perhaps may be a bit like asking how this comes across to someone who is trying to do something with some honest effort, but just needs some mentoring. If the response is something that you'd say to a person in that position who you barely know then it should be more professional/tactful than if it were someone you already know and can take the ribbing for overlooking something they should have known better for doing.

@ShaneMadden: I think the difficulty is that without facial expressions and tone of voice people will generally think someone is just being disrespectful unless they are careful in how they write it.

also why is my damn gravatar broken again? Insert rageface here.

@voretaq7 I remember reading somewhere about current type debates in the early days of the electric chair - trying to get AC used to portray it as more dangerous, or something.

Bart Silverstrim

Now, there have been some people I vaguely recall tactful answers given and they (the asker or person being replied to) respond in a less than tactful way, baiting others to release their pent up frustrations...that may lead to the snark-fu demons that have been alluded to.

@KyleBrandt That's definitely part of it -- I've been a LOT meaner to junior admins I've mentored in person (like giving the guy the X session that was tied to an xterm and telling him "Just don't exit this terminal", then when he did saying "OK, now you figure out how to get the graphics back")

Bart Silverstrim

4:49 PM

There may be an element of expecting people to know XYZ (this is a QA site for professionals...) so we expect others to do or know certain things.

May forget that people begin somewhere...and the line is subjective.

Regarding the seek a professional...

Bart Silverstrim

There are a number of questions that it's obvious they want us to do homework or not want to Google things.

@ShaneMadden yup - It was the Westinghouse/Edison AC/DC thing. Edison wanted them to use the Westinghouse AC chair for publicity reasons ("AC IS A KILLER!")

@voretaq7 Ah yes. Didn't pan out, heh.

Three levels of ignorance, goes something like:
1) No ignorance, you understand the problem and solution
2) You are ignorant about the details of the problem and how to solve it. However, you are aware that you are lack the knowledge
3) You are unaware of the complexity of the problem and that you are ignorant of it

If someone is at level 3, but they need to solve the problem quickly. Then bringing them to level 2 so they know they need to hire someone

4:52 PM

@KyleBrandt: The known knowns, the known unknowns and the unknown unknowns? :)

Bart Silverstrim

Wasn't that in a blog post?

If they are junior admin, then you probably want to guide them from 3, then to 2, then to 1

@BartSilverstrim Yeah, the "ok so give me the steps" ones are.. not good.

"Go hire someone this is too hard" probably doesn't help. Nor does using a bunch of jargon either. Thing like analogy will probably aid them in bringing them to level two

Bart Silverstrim

I thought there was a post somewhere (and it's been bugging me because for several days I've been thinking about it) where it's talking about people and qualifications for jobs. Regarded people who think they know XYZ and are highly qualified, usually aren't, but people who doubt themselves doubt themselves because they know there's so much they don't know.

Now that I saw that quote though I might be able to google it.

Think you triggered a memory for some keywords...thanks.

4:54 PM

Anyone have any idea how they create that graphic? It is some sort of ultra-sleek powerpoint thingy?

It looks very automated.. not something you'd do in afterfx/3dsmax manually

@SmallClanger: Sure, I might calling that "Not knowing that you don't know, knowing that you don't know, and knowing"

@KyleBrandt: Did you find a new sysadmin (you anti-immigrant fools!)?

@pauska: Not yet, working on it. Taking our time

Are you perhaps thinking of the Dunning–Kruger effect?

Dunning–Kruger effect

The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which unskilled people make poor decisions and reach erroneous conclusions, but their incompetence denies them the metacognitive ability to recognize their mistakes. The unskilled therefore suffer from illusory superiority, rating their ability as above average, much higher than it actually is, while the highly skilled underrate their own abilities, suffering from illusory inferiority. Actual competence may weaken self-confidence, as competent individuals may falsely assume that others have an equivalent understanding. As Kruger and Dunning ...

Bart Silverstrim

Yes! I just pulled it up on Google.

5:04 PM

@Zoredache: I'm plagued with doubt and have no self-confidence. Does that make me a genius?

Correlation

@SmallClanger, possibly. Or maybe just not very American. The studies suggest that Dunning–Kruger doesn't seem to apply in all cultures.

@ShaneMadden "You don't know what these numbers just told you. I'm an expert and I don't know what these numbers just told you!"

Just looked, you are from the UK. That proves it.

So I'm stupid and indecisive. Cool.

5:07 PM

@Zoredache It's worst among US-Americans and Japanese/Chinese in my experience

Special chat participation bonus, are there 3 people in here who didn't get a LOPSA membership that want one?

cultures where "face" is very important

@KyleBrandt oh yeah I meant to note that those appear to have gone out on saturday

I was very drunk at the time though so I may have been hallucinating emails again.

Evening folks

@ITHedgeHog it's afternoon here

:)

It's past 6pm, thats evening for me =D

5 days until this ITHedgeHog is a married Hedge Hog.

5:13 PM

@ITHedgeHog lies. Everyone is on US/Eastern time!

@ITHedgeHog we throw bachelor party in datacenter. Cage dancers in racks?

@voretaq7 except stackexchange which is on UTC

Bart Silverstrim

@Voretaq7 - Need webcams.

@Iain that's because they're heathen devil admins who don't believe in the duality of 2 AM.

::preaches the gospel of "It can be two o'clock in the morning twice on the same day"::

@BartSilverstrim security feeds.

@KyleBrandt can you extend mine :) (LOPSA )

Well the goal is to grow the organization -- so new members would be ideal

5:26 PM

@KyleBrandt True, and I'm going to PICC again, so it's not really needed

OK.. yeah, just had to point someone at the meta thread Re: snark. Now if people are setting off my snark alarm I think we may have a problem :-/

@voretaq7 Red Alert?

0

A: Terminal script for Apple Remote Desktop to find disk space

and that I am not looking forward to, unless the community helps! So what you are saying is you don't want to do your work but let us do it instead? About your question: Have you ever looked at the Report menu in your Apple Remote Desktop main menu? You can ask ARD to create detailed rep...

wait no... damnit!

stupid copy-and-paste. Do what I mean.

@voretaq7 Hows that flawless god role working out for you?

fine, thanks for asking!
*kicks bucket of epoxy under desk*
On an unrelated note, never try to unplug that rack over there.

2

"Being a god is a lot easier when your minions DO WHAT THEY'RE TOLD!"
[Random smiting]

5:34 PM

Borderline site question here...

Anyone know of a dedicated VPN device for teleworkers?

Bart Silverstrim

...A linux router?

@BartSilverstrim behind a firewall too

Bart Silverstrim

A linux firewall/VPN turnkey router?

Unless you have a specific endpoint need I'd be tempted to look at that first.

@Jacob a pfsense firewall? :)

Bart Silverstrim

Otherwise the employer with the keys on the other side would probably have an admin tell you what works best.

5:38 PM

@BartSilverstrim I am the admin

If you can terminate the VPN on your firewall that's usually the way to go

until you scale up to a point where you ned a dedicated VPN concentrator anyway

I need to get my MBP and IPphone to the corp net. nothing else on my homenet

whoops this is my end

on the corp side, I already have a PFsense box on the way

I'll be there to install it on monday

@Jacob doc.pfsense.org/index.php/VPN_Capability_IPsec <--- IPSEC is your friend... friend... friends....

user image

FRIENDS!

(YAY! an excuse to post that again!!!)

hold the phone

@Jacob um... you don't want me to do that.

This is iPhone number 7.

5:42 PM

This was a fun answer to write.

Bart Silverstrim

pfsense on the corp side...any reason not to have it on the other side at your home?

0

A: haproxy + stunnel + keep-alive?

This is about HTTP keep-alive, which allows for multiple resource requests to come through a single TCP session (and, with SSL, a single SSL session). This is of great importance to the performance of an SSL site, as without keep-alive, an SSL handshake would be needed for each requested resourc...

can't with Verizon

Fios is delivered over COAX

@Jacob you can have them turn up the ethernet port on your ONT

they'll hassle you about it a bit, but they'll do it.

plus I only need my mac and a IP Phone to be connected, nothing else on the network

5:44 PM

Alternatively you can double-NAT, but EW and OH NO!

@voretaq7 no the STB need it for guide data

@Jacob you can just leave their crippled router inline, that's the setup I have right now

(or you can live without the guide)

one day Vz will get a STB that doesn't totally suck (maybe one with A FREAKIN' CLOCK???) and you won't NEED the crippled router.

@voretaq7 it has one

@voretaq7 there aren't any VPN Tunnel devices like that?

an entire machine to run PFsense seems abit much

my STB doesn't have a clock - just a lame power symbol

Bart Silverstrim

...VM the pfsense box?

5:51 PM

I feel ripped off by verizon!

. . . that's not a new feeling. Damn phone companies.

Comcast is doing Fiber Internet in my area now. Just met with a sales rep. Now I'm salivating over the notion of a 1.25Gbps fiber connection (not that I could ever justify the costs, but a guy can dream)

@ChrisS Comcast would cap you at 50GB for the month

@BartSilverstrim still needs a dedicated host

but hey, think of how fast you could hit the cap!

Bart Silverstrim

Yeah, but you get that 50GB really fast.

5:52 PM

@voretaq7 what is that, like 3 minutes or less?

@Jacob mmm... probably closer to 5-6 if you account for protocol overhead

@voretaq7 Their "enterprise" service is a whole different subsidiary of their home/business services. No 250GB cap.

but I think they just make a bit count so that doesn't matter

@ChrisS Just wait.

Whats with this internet cap BS?

BW is getting cheaper?

Yeah; I still remember the good old days of @Home service, uncapped DOCSIS 1.1 (38Mbps).

5:54 PM

Once they get the camel's nose into the tent for residential they'll put his head in for small business, and soon before you know it commercial/enterprise users are chewing this stuff: t.co/XgzYLFx (Moderately NSFAnyone)

@Jacob 5.3 minutes ;)

@Jacob 1% of users account for 90% of bandwidth; that's "what's up"

@ChrisS I'm paying for a speed. If you can't make your margins while providing that service raise your prices. Don't dick me around with caps and throttling.

Though I think that's changing. I head a month or two ago "Social Media" usurped "Pr0n" for #1 source of traffic on the net.

@ChrisS split out the social media pr0n and pr0n is still number one.

5:56 PM

@voretaq7 You and I are "normal" people.... Not properly educated MBAs, if we had The Right Education™ we would understand too.

@ChrisS Hard to justify unless they're paying by the bit. They've build their cost model around $X per user supporting infrastructure to support those users.

If I want to use 100% of my bandwidth at all times to pummel 1.1.1.1 with junk UDP traffic, that's my right as a paying customer! ;)

4

I'm mean I'm already capped @ 150/50 Mbits

@ShaneMadden I agree. And if I ran the ISP I'd have service plans with a reasonable CBR and ABR and use something like WFQ or QFQ to fairly "throttle" bandwidth hogs.

@ShaneMadden I'll pay for a CIR. That's what I'm doing now.

@ChrisS @voretaq7 does my answer here work for bsd ?

6:05 PM

It's basically just double-dipping; same thing as comcast asking level 3 to pay them for peering connections for data requested by comcast subscribers

Verizon says "You are buying 50/50", I get 50/50 to sites that support it, I'm happy to pay for it

@Iain answer whatnow? :)

@Iain no, but it's close

@Iain see comment :)

none of this extraneous : crap on BSDs :-)

@voretaq7 Damn; beat me to it.

(this is why I wish people would put their operating system tag on their questions)

6:11 PM

I get really annoyed by the Linux lusers who assume the one and only *nix platform on Earth is Linux.

@ChrisS I get further infuriated by the ones who give answers that involve distribution-specific tools

to the point where I have posted comments like "All the world is NOT a Linux box. Your answer doesn't work on BSD, AIX, Solaris, HP-UX etc."

The other day one asked for some sysctl stuff, assuming Linux was the only OS that has sysctl.... apparently 4.4BSD didn't have it over a year before Linux...

@voretaq7 don't forget Tru64

@ChrisS Nobody uses Tru64 :-)

@ChrisS asking for sysctl stuff without an OS (and VERSION) really pisses me off - it's totally different among the BSDs, to say nothing of the knobs that have changed between FreeBSD versions alone

's why my answers to stuff like that are usually along the lines of "Tune *some parameter*, see your OS documentation for info on how".
Every time I see someone say "Just do `echo foo > /proc/sys/bar` " I want to kill a kitten.

no? No monospaced text? Fine then. Stupid markdown parser.
*seethes*

2

@voretaq7 That would get migrated to SuperFault

@Jacob the markdown parser is going to get forcibly migrated.

6:22 PM

@voretaq7 From now on, we should give BSD-specific answer where possible.

@ChrisS having a Solaris background I can only agree

@MikeyB BSD admins are better than that - we know there's more to the world than our particular version of MyVerySpecialLinux Release 1.2.3 patch a, with packages Q, L, œ and ∂ installed

@MikeyB Pft, how about giving Mac OS 9 answers when no OS is specified

however I am sorely attempted to post AIX-specific answers requiring the use of smitty :-D

@voretaq7 You beat me to it by 10 seconds, you bastard.

6:26 PM

"Just dynamically resize your swap partition to be smaller and give the extra space to the volume group that's running short. Oh wait, your puny operating system can't shrink swap while it's in use."

"I got a smitty: command not found error when I tried your answer. I tried to install it with 'apt-get install smitty' but Debian couldn't find the package! Help!"

2

@MikeyB Contact IBM support. They will be happy to assist you (for the low low price of $YOUR.SOUL)

@voretaq7 I have helped out IBM Support more times than they have helped me. :/

also has anyone ever used smit (smitty's graphical brother)?

smit has a little man with a barbell - when commands are executing he does reps. I want to know how many meetings they had deciding on that animation.

@voretaq7 I am just waiting for the day when someone asks 'How do I expand a SAN LUN on Linux without downtime when using LVM?' so I can post my answer than involves use of a calculator :p

2

@voretaq7 <3 smit(ty)?. And especially the 'show me the command that will be executed' feature.

6:30 PM

@MikeyB you learn SO MANY CRYPTIC IBM INCANTATIONS from that feature!

and then you have an IBM FE in the office and you use one of them and they go "What's that? I've never seen it do that before!" and you cry a little.

@ChrisS: I just read the commit log for FreeBSD 9.0

@ChrisS: ZFS dedup and a ton of networking optimizations.. mmmmm

also can I just say the IBM RedBooks on AIX management rival the FreeBSD handbook for completeness and usefulness.

@pauska massive networking work. Can't wait for 9.1 so I can switch :)

@pauska Yeah; I saw a blog post recently that gave an overview of what they've been working on. Looks like good stuff.

@ChrisS you can troll the feature list in the wiki too

I wish I had some kind of workload to test it with

6:31 PM

I'm hoping they push it out as 8.3 though; I'm getting tired of major version numbers changing for relatively minor new features.

or freebsd.org/relnotes/CURRENT/relnotes/article.html now that we're in pre-release

@ChrisS ZFS dedup is pretty major, and there was a lot of under-the-hood kernel fuckery for the network stuff (though nowhere near as much as when they whacked GIANT)

@voretaq7 My first week on the job I went onsite to a customer who just purchased a boot-from-SAN solution (from us) to shadow two IBM FEs who were doing the install. The SAN guy they had onsite told the customer "Oh, I don't usually set up boot-from-SAN environments. They don't work terribly well."

Glad to see AHCI will work through the CAM interface now; instead of doing the ADA kludge.

@MikeyB IBM FEs are hit or miss. I usually judge them by how they react to an AS/400 without the key on a string.

@MikeyB Ours works very well. Though getting it setup was a PITA as the documentation was outdated.

6:36 PM

fortunately most of my IBM experiences were at the ISP/IBM Authorized Hosting Center

@voretaq7 Those release notes look ancient... Like over a year old.

so OUR SAN guy (uniquely competent) and OUR iSeries guy (also uniquely competent), and ME (by virtue of being the only guy on staff with any AIX experience) did most of the work :)

@ChrisS yea they are -- i guess the RE team hasn't gotten around to them yet

@voretaq7 ZFS and dedupe is impetus enough for me to invest time in relearning BSD.

@MikeyB ZFS isn't the only filesystem to get some lovin: svnweb.freebsd.org/base?view=revision&revision=222319

@voretaq7 That particular FE ended up getting let go after I told my boss and he raised hell with IBM.

6:39 PM

(yup, it's that time again! Time to double the UFS block size :)

@voretaq7 I wish I had gone to BSDCan this year; I was planning on it until airline ticket prices jumped.. Hopefully next year I can make it.

@ChrisS the filesystem talk is on YouTube - those talks are always interesting.

I'm always fascinated by how well UFS has held up over the years - I still use it as my default filesystem and probably will until ZFS fully stabilizes

@ShaneMadden - thanks for the IP tip earlier, works nicely.

permalink.gmane.org/gmane.os.freebsd.current/132807 talks about some of the network hackery that went on - I'm especially interested in that as my firewalls are stripped down FreeBSD systems :)

I think pf got a version bump too but I can't find the reference

@voretaq7 I've switched to ZFS & GPT for any new systems. Few troubles with multiple locking systems (NFS & SMB simultaneously); but otherwise pretty solid. ZFS still has issues when it has to give up cache for memory hog applications.

I need to play around with some of the new IPFW stuff. I haven't had a chance yet and there have been quite a few changes this year.

6:49 PM

@ChrisS I switched exclusively to pf a while back - the syntax is SO much nicer :)

only thing I dislike about pf is we don't merge in OpenBSD's changes anywhere near fast enough for my taste

I've made half-hearted attempts at picking up pf before; I learned on ipfw and it still works for my needs...

At least ipfw isn't as bad as ipf =]

ugh. ipf.

HATE.

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