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12:01 AM
302 reputation for today. Holy moly.
 
Nice job
I am going to have to answer some questions one of these days. My rep is growing really slowly lately...
 
And 9 accepted answers. I think that's some kind of personal record.
 
Oh. Dear. God. No.
Somebody just tried to get me to go do Cisco & Linux sysadmin as a contractor at wholly-owned Microsoft subsidiary.
Fsck. No.
Poor sod does mostly MS contractees and doesn't even know about stack ranking.
 
lol
@MichaelHampton to whois being awesome.
 
12:17 AM
Yep. Now if I could only get my own whois record updated.... I haven't been at that address/phone number since 2005
 
@MichaelHampton I thought that was just to throw the Feds off your trail.
 
@84104 Naa, most people don't even know that whois record exists. It's probably never even been searched for.
But I wouldn't know since it's OUT OF FUCKING DATE
 
1:06 AM
Is anyone in a Java shop?
 
My coffee maker runs 24x7x365, does that count?
 
1:29 AM
1
Q: Linux- Is an MTA required?

bernieMy VPS image (Debian 6) comes pre-installed with sendmail as the MTA. I will use this server as a web server, and maybe other usages but not as a mail server. I want to remove as many unneeded services as possible to save resources. Can the MTA be safely removed? What are the consequences?

Translation: I can't afford 4MB of RAM to run sendmail
 
2:14 AM
@JoelESalas I could walk down to CBTL and call you if you want.
 
 
1 hour later…
3:24 AM
-1
Q: DHCP won't assign an IP to the server, but all other devices are fine

SylvesterI have several devices on my network (PC's (wired), laptops (wifi), iPod (wifi), Wii (wifi)) including a web server (Just a normal PC with Ubuntu Server installed) using a wired connection. All devices are successfully assigned an IP from the DHCP server (DHCP is on the router). I used to be able...

RTFAQ or GTFO
 
@ewwhite Yo, you still looking around for work or you happy where you are? I got a guy with a position in SanFrancisco for a Puppet install base and training other people there how to use it.
howdy @MichaelHampton
 
Not going anywhere near California.
@Adrian Run out of close votes yet?
 
@MichaelHampton I like the area, but the number of people would drive me crazy.
@MichaelHampton haven't started yet. had dinner with the lady
 
Lucky you.
 
@MichaelHampton Provided opportunity to discuss the notion of contracting.
 
3:33 AM
I bet she's entirely unconvinced.
 
@MichaelHampton No, she's more practical than I am. Her take was 'Take their money and run. And leave with no regrets at the end of the contract."
 
When are you going to propose?
 
And just about every other listed aspect of the job is exactly what I'm looking for.
@MichaelHampton She's asked me not to do so for a year or so. Will give me time to pay off my bills and buy nice fat ring.
 
@MichaelHampton If that question gets migrated to SuperUser we should all collectively castrate ourselves with bendy straws
 
@WesleyDavid Probably, but it's about average for SU.
 
3:37 AM
I gave it the coup de grace with no migrate.
 
@Adrian kitty licks
 
0
Q: Install / Start Apache HTTP Server on Windows

BagiraI have downloaded the Apache HTTP Server 2.4 from Here and after extracting the zip file i can see a couple of folders but I could not figure out how to start / install server. I want to install server standalone i.e. without PHP / MySQL. This s because I have already MySQL installed and I don't...

Because Apache has no documentation, right?
 
@MichaelHampton NARQ'd
 
@MichaelHampton Downvoted because mean kitty.
 
3:52 AM
0
Q: debian squeeze: where do the logs for sysv init scripts go? (why won't my init script work)

sbeammy actual problem is trying to debug a init script to start Resque. It works fine run as root from the command line, but does nothing on boot. It has some proper insserv headers and I've run updaterc.d to create the symlinks, and checked that they exist. The script is +x. # find /etc/rc*.d -name...

I ran out of fingers counting the design flaws in that script before I ever got to start(). There's approximately one per line, not counting comments... That stuff is meant to be in /etc/defaults/$PROGRAM
 
I just had to read @titusjaka's name a few times before I read it right. I need to get my mind out of the gutter.
 
4:07 AM
How come nobody told me about Forward Unto Dawn?! And I had to find it myself?!
 
Sadly, my Xbox generally only gets to run Lego games.
 
@ChrisS Because everyone hates you and wants you to be sad.
 
I'm sad that it's only 5 episodes long... They obviously have the talent to pull off some awesome stuff. Wish they had done at least a dozen to sixteen... Make it a "season" in the more traditional TV sense.
 
4:43 AM
WTF? I can only review 20 queue'd questions per day?
There's a THOUSAND fscking questions in there.
 
@Adrian StackExchange hates you and wants you to be sad.
 
That 56K question queue over on SO isn't going away anytime soon, then, either.
 
@WesleyDavid Probably. I'm sure somebody has their panties in a wad over at SO about the number of rejection so they changed to review queue code.
 
lol
@Adrian: and you need two people to review a question now.
 
@JourneymanGeek So they're making it more difficult for us to do the job. Lovely. A solution only a developer would think is realistic.
 
4:49 AM
@Adrian: naturally.
 
Naa, this particular "solution" smacks of someone higher up than a developer.
 
@MichaelHampton cue illuminati
 
I'm going to post a question to meta.SF
Done.
See if we get another visit from .SE telling us we're bad little children and should sit down, shut up, and take our medicine.
 
@MichaelHampton Hey! That fscker ran like a swiss watch.
 
4:57 AM
@MichaelHampton Time paradox whoaaaooaoaoaa
 
@MichaelHampton I kind of wonder if the reason the review queue got capped was because of us and rnxrx. Can't have all those SO questions getting closed. Gives the flagship site a bad name.
 
Eh? Doesn't he "Do Not Close" everything?
 
@MichaelHampton I worked on that
 
^ Game point.
 
@Chopper3 I knew there was a reason I liked you. I friggin' love OS/2.
 
5:05 AM
Which half?
 
eheh. Its on my 'old OSes to try to get running' list
 
@Adrian I worked on the 286-specific part of the kernel - there was always a major bug in the 286 that had to be worked around, the 386 didn't have it - so I worked on that, in Boca Raton
 
@MichaelHampton A little more than I'd prefer perhaps.
 
Wasn't that that the 286 didn't actually support something that it was supposed to support? I'm a bit hazy on the details, it being decades ago...
 
@Chopper3 Cool. We loved OS/2 for setting up multi-line FidoNet BBS systems when I was in college.
 
5:08 AM
@MichaelHampton it could enter protected mode but couldn't switch out of it, you had to basically save all the register data in a known location then reboot into real mode knowing that the initial boot code would pick up the register data, reapply it and carry on - so it would essentially reboot a few hundred times a second on a 286
 
Oh jeez.
I missed most of the fun; went straight from a 4.77MHz 8088 to a nice 16MHz 386. And promptly put Linux on it.
 
lol
I went from that to a 486
then a PII...
/me seems to skip a generation or 4 between systems
 
@MichaelHampton I started in CP/M land, then did some IBM mainframe stuff, then OS/2 and Xenix (remember that?) and eventually onto more mainstream stuff
 
Never used Xenix, but certainly saw it in production. Long past its shelf life.
 
5:42 AM
@Adrian /Review is a mess...
0
A: Cap on Question Review?

WardFrom the questions on meta.SO (example), there are clearly problems with the /Review system and things are being changed all the time. This answers says it's now 20 reviews per user per queue per day. I thought there was another question about close votes, but I can't find it now. When they up...

You can follow some of the angst on meta.SO by looking at the Review tag...
 
6:00 AM
@Ward Clearly. This one still seems to me as a solution to some other problem and not the one we have.
I guess that's one problem with the StackExchange paradigm is the assumption that one size fits all.
 
well, maybe, but I'd note you guys are an edge case
I almost never run out of flags or votes on SU
and I flag a lot there
 
6:22 AM
@JourneymanGeek flagged as offensive
Your flags offend me.
 
Morning!
 
@WesleyDavid: they offend me too
This is why I flag em
flags himself
 
6:47 AM
 
7:37 AM
G'day
@Ward /review is a mess on SO because SO
 
So, Zynga laid off a chunk of it's workforce yesterday, hoping the news would be buried under Windows 8 and iPad mini news. No such luck and a lot of sites picked up on it.
As bad as people loosing their jobs are, I have no love for Zynga - I don't know how they managed to spend masses of money on OMGPOP (Creators of Draw Something) becuase it was obvious it was a fad and was going to fade out after a couple of months.
 
lol
@tombull89: Well, the whole model they had was... all about the next fad.
 
7:59 AM
So, new iMac too.
2.9GHz with 8GB and 1TB - starting at $1799 - available in December.
 
how they hell did they fit anything in there?
 
It is a grave shock to one of our students that we can't recover from backup a file he created at 10am and deleted at 10.15am on the same day.
 
@RobM Yup, been there too.
 
8:15 AM
@JourneymanGeek about time that some of those bubbles burst..
 
Dan
@RobM Haha un*lucky*
(Why I ever try do anything with markdown)
 
un lucky
need spaces
 
Dan
@tombull89 But it ruins the effect :(
 
well either way... I had to lol.
 
Dan
@RobM I was thinking "I don't recall you seeing you here before"
 
8:26 AM
I know, right. Trying to look professional if I'm going to use my SF profile in my job application details.
 
anyone got a link to something several hundred mb to test a BT fibre install?
(getting 33mbps down and 1mbps up which doesn't seem right!?)
 
universities usually have zetabits of pipes..
(mirrors for linux/freebsd etc)
 
Office 2010 trial? Windows 8 Developer Preview? Ubuntu disk image?
 
linky link? :P
 
or perhaps this one? releases.ubuntu.com/12.10/…
 
8:32 AM
noooo not a torrent
 
why?
 
Dan
@RobM Wuss!
 
but, honestly, you can't really test a 1gbit pipe with just a single download
it won't give you accurate data
either download something via utorrent with LOTS of peers, or get your ISP to set up a iperf server at their end..
 
Dan
@HaydnWVN The only way I know to max out high speed lines is Usenet
 
308 KB/s - 15.4 MB of 238 MB, 12 mins left
 
8:34 AM
owner-country: NL
 
Hmmm, might need a UK server
and this is FTTC, not FTTP/H
 
triple play? home line?
 
this is a Zen connection
business line
 
I have no idea what Zen is
imagine you're talking to non-UK people
 
UK ISP, BT are the wholesale provider and actually do the install
mirror.leaseweb.net seems good, but not very quick speeds for me
 
8:36 AM
leaseweb.net is a dutch domain
so again
why are you not trying to find a UK FTP mirror?
or use bittorrent (legally)?
 
Dan
@HaydnWVN giganews.com Get a free trial then download some lInux ISOs from binsearch
 
Its ok, the files at fuller.zen.co.uk/test are enough :)
4433 KB/s - 8.9 MB of 100 MB, 3 mins left
 
Dan
@HaydnWVN It's that still less than 40mbit?
How fast should the line be
 
The engineer said his test ran at 20mb
and that's line speed i guess, not actual
thanks guys
cya o/
 
I was paged.
Where's Wes? >.>
 
Dan
9:45 AM
Error code 1603. Additional information is available in the log file C:\Users\Administrator\AppData\Local\Temp\2\MSI18787.LOG.

Guess what file that error is in. And guess which file does not provide additional information :(
 
doh
 
Dan
The worst bit is I've had this before and last time I just rebuilt the server, but I'd need physical access to the site for this one so bleugh
 
Starting to realise what life is like if you don't work in a startup.
I hate it.
 
Dan
@TomO'Connor If you don't? Too corporate where you are, you mean?
 
@Dan Aye. and the technical lead is a bulldog.
 
Dan
9:59 AM
@TomO'Connor :(
The company website made it look like a fairly hip place - obviously not then
 
and the concierge/security woman is EVIL.
hahahhaahahahahahhahaha
that's what their PR company is for.
you should see what some of the customers have to say.
it's concerning.
 
Dan
@TomO'Connor Ouch - shows what looks can do then! What, really - I signed up :D
 
What is it again? Discount shopping site?
@Dan I saw "connect with facebook" and NOPE'D right out of there.
 
I wish i'd read this before starting.
There's an underlying level of weird I can't put my finger on.
 
ah... @TomO'Connor not having fun then
 
10:04 AM
@RobM I dunno. It's a bit too corporate
 
Dan
@TomO'Connor Christ - I love that the high reviews on that page look almost certainly like shills
 
and I'm the only sysadmin.. so there's a lot of pressure
 
Dan
@TomO'Connor Is it just a contract?
 
No
Perm
BUT
The breakout/probation is for 3 months
 
I guess you're used to startup culture more?
 
Dan
10:05 AM
@TomO'Connor Oh right, time to start looking before you really hate life
 
I think I ordered from Secret Sales once and was happy with what I got but it took a long time to arrive
And yeah, if its not for you @TomO'Connor then time to start looking again. :-(
Better to leave on your own terms before you lose your sanity!
 
@RobM Yeah, that's one of the odd things. I can see why they do it, but it does mean the delivery times are enormous.
as in, sell before buying
 
Dan
Definitely - I can't see it getting better. Let's face it, you're meant to be in the honeymoon "this is fun" period
 
yeah.
 
Why did the previous guy leave? Do you know?
 
10:07 AM
That's the worrying thing.
 
Dan
@TomO'Connor Drop shipping is reasonably common, I asume they get it from abroad?
 
@tombull89 They've never had a previous guy
there's a managed hosting service who'd always been their sysadmins
but they're really useless it seems
support is good, knowledge is lacking.
and that whole "other customers too" thing.
 
Dan
I suppose, for me, I'd be asking whether it's the staff/culture you dislike or the state of the IT and what you're supporting
Because only one of those can change!
 
so they'd never be as good as an in house guy
tbh, i don't like either that much. :P
 
Dan
Fuck it then :D
 
10:10 AM
Life's too short to be stuck in a job you dislike longer than you have to be
 
need money tho
 
Oh yeah. I'm suggesting you leave on your own terms, not just walk out :-)
 
Dan
@TomO'Connor There's always the docks
 
o.O
apparently there's Jira here
but if i can't get to it with http://jira
then i'm not interested.
 
Dan
http://serverfault.com/a/441221/95832

i'm feeling a row coming on
 
10:17 AM
@TomO'Connor Jira is great stuff according to our developers
 
interesting
 
@pauska Oh totally I love it
but..
I can't seem to find this service here
nobody'll tell me where it is
 
You don't know the URL either?
dig up the database if they're running it properly
 
Why bother
if they don't want me to see it
 
10:35 AM
@tom Look for the thing that's eating all the RAM. (so much that it's firing lightning at nearby pylons like that thing in superman III)
 
Dan
You know you're in trouble when you google an error and get zero results
 
@Dan "Hmm. Cryptic error. No problem, I'll google it. Someone's bound to of had it before...shit"
 
Dan
@tombull89 THat's pretty much - in fact, in a way I got excited because I thought "Well, if I can find someone else with this they must have an answer" :D
 
Been there, done that, as well.
 
@tombull89 first hit is usually my question on sf.
 
Dan
10:46 AM
@TomO'Connor Yeah I love that
100 points to someone who can find out ANYTHING about this:

CTX_HF_SetRegistryComponentsToNotOverwriteRegEntries
(-1000000 points for the person who feels the need to point out it Sets registry components to not overwrite registry entries)
 
@Dan What's this regarding?
 
Dan
@tombull89 Citrix having a strop and deciding that it won't be installing or uninstalling any more patches
 
@Dan Pay citrix more money
 
Dan
@TomO'Connor They've paid them plenty !
(I'd log a support call, but, honestly......it's just not worth it)
It must be something to do with the way this clients builds their servers, cos I've had this twice now on their projects but never anywhere else
 
11:35 AM
Microsoft Lync.. for screensharing/webcasts.
Sucks on OSX.
sucks so bad.
Just had a confcall with Brocade
and had to dial in on my mobile phone to get audio
 
we have lync users on OS X.. works fine for them
was it a netmeeting with brocade, or did you host it on your own Lync servers?
 
11:57 AM
their lync servers
I miss netmeeting.
 
I guess they're having problems with their edge server(s) then
it tunnels SIP through TLS over HTTPS
or something funny like that
the only time I've encountered problems with our Lync deployment is when I send out a netmeeting to someone who also has a Lync server deployed (with edge services), but use a incorrect certificate - like a wildcard cert - at the edge
so instead of trying to establish a netmeeting it tries to federate, which then horribly fails because of the cert
many bad Lync admins out there.. :(
 
12:16 PM
You'd think brocade'd get the routing right..
 
You'd think Cisco would get networking products right too but look at how much their line of home products sucks donkey dick in the high street every day at noon.
3
 
@RobM But they're not Cisco
they're Linksys.
 
yeah that makes it so much better
and their website is home.cisco.com
 
If vendor.name == Cisco AND product.price <= 200: exit.
2
 
@TomO'Connor same applies for HP networking gear
 
12:29 PM
aye
 
And dlink, 3com and all the others.
 
I bought 8 of "HP" (3com) 8-port PoE switches.. they loose their PoE power daily..
 
3com? From hell's heart I stab at thee
 
HP refuses to take them back
saying that it's our fault that our access points die on them
 
Would you want them back? I know I wouldn't.
 
12:30 PM
hah
 
bought new HP 2520 switches, and they work just great...
 
That's very shabby of them though, being serious for a moment. 3com was always a bit dodgy and its a shame to see HP making them into their sewer instead of sorting it out
 
yeah I'm not giving up
fuck not if we're going to pay for 8 switches that doesn't work as specified
PoE is PoE
 
@pauska Except it isn't.
There's at least 3 incompatible "standards"
the only one to trust is the 802.something AF
 
these ap's follow the standard
 
12:41 PM
do the switches?
 
Do they follow the standard or a standard?
 
802.3af is the 15w version, .at is the 25.5w version
 
access point:
POWER
• 48 V DC 802.3af power over Ethernet
switch:
provides up to 15.4 W per port to IEEE 802.3af-compliant PoE-powered
devices such as IP phones, wireless access points, and security cameras (see product specifications for total PoE power
available)
so yeah, I did my homework before buying these
 
no idea.
Hmpfh. HP fail.
 
1:32 PM
 
1:52 PM
morning
 
Dan
Sorry but HP's "Sea of Sensors 3D" is just a crap name
 
2:17 PM
When the DBAs can't trust the application admins: sirsql.net/blog/2012/10/23/…
 
posted on October 24, 2012 by SysAdmin1138

Systemic sexism is sneaky: you don't always recognize it when you see it, and unless you've had cause to be sensitized by it, you may not recognize when you see it until much after the fact. I had a moment...

 
SE account related question, not sure if anyone knows or not: I'm deleting my Google Apps account which has my primary e-mail (its moving elsewhere) however thats the e-mail address I use for OpenID logins via Google for SE, if I delete the GA account and then re-create a plain Google account will it break the link to SE?
I can post to Meta if that's better, just not sure
 
Scary thing of the day:
Found a CDN that can cache SSL content.
They've got our domain in the SAN field of their certificate
and seem to be doing a subtle MITM attack.
for good reasons.
 
afternoon all, anyone want to do my work for me please?
 
but WTF man.
 
2:22 PM
SSL caching by cdn are usually opted in options
 
@TomO'Connor and suddenly I'm leaning towards mixing http and https on the same website
 
@JustinDearing I always thought that SSL traffic was almost guaranteed to be secure.
it leaves me thinking that they could do all sorts of crap in the middle.
 
that bothers me
 
it's so dodgy.
it took me whole minutes to figure out how they'd got the cert to be valid but not have hostname == CN
and then SAN clicked
but yeah..
 
@TomO'Connor would TLS allow for some kind of chain of trust?
 
2:27 PM
@BrentPabst: switch to another openID first. Also, you'd need to redo your gravitar
otherwise should be fine, done it before.
 
it smells wrong.
 
@JourneymanGeek actually gravatar will let you have multiple email addresses
 
@JustinDearing But they're replacing the cert
so you'd need a directory of who holds which certs
which you couldn't do.
you could put the fingerprint into your dns
 
@TomO'Connor What CDN is this? Maybe we need to pressure them for full disclosure.
 
but this CDN serves your A records.
I'm not sure I want to say.
yet.
 
2:29 PM
@JourneymanGeek any clue if Microsoft ever got off their ass with an OpenID service?
 
"Accelerate and protect SSL traffic by leveraging $CDN's proprietary SSL termination software, and the thousands of servers in $CDN's global cloud network."
 
not as far as I know @BrentPabst
 
Proprietary?
 
they suffer from pretty bad NIH
 
2:30 PM
Fuck. That. Shit.
 
@BrentPabst still in progress by looks of it
 
@ColdT @JourneymanGeek Yea, looks like a Beta may be available
might work for me temporarily
 
Do you guys think about switch capacity and oversubscription?
Or is that just one of those things you fudge and hope you don't run into issues?
 
sometimes
Its one of those things I constantly run into issues with because my bosses don't understand that 400 data points into 300 switch ports don't go.
 
2:44 PM
<frantic barking>
 
and of course if its client machines on a heavily subnetted LAN that someone set up and planned for one type of expansion and which is now being expanded in a different way, its not just switch ports... its capacity in DHCP scopes, etc. too.
 
@voretaq7 Arf?
 
@Adrian Man you Linux guys are wimps. The boss is right; Windows 7 makes a far more amusing server platform than CentOS.
 
lol @HopelessN00b
 
2:50 PM
the main thing is that we're entertained
 
@ColdT Nah, it's entertainment and job security. Run your servers on Windows7, and the SA staff will never have to worry about running out of problems to fix.
 
@ewwhite only on 10GbE networks
 
Dan
@ewwhite Not so much at the access layer, though that's rarely my problem anyway
 
@TomO'Connor And that's definitely fair.
 
2:56 PM
core capacity is always a worry too of course.
 
And this is stuff real networking people know in and out?
 
@ewwhite In theory.
 

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