The Comms Room

Journeyman Geek

16:00

oh, thats different

and well, we don't really have canonical posts on SU

voretaq7

@faker EXTRA COOLING. You know how many kJ of energy it takes to melt that snow? :)

Tanner

@JourneymanGeek I still contest we should have a canonical virus post that says "nuke it".

Journeyman Geek

@Tanner: thats about the only one we did

Tanner

So many people on there saying "I removed the virus, but now Windows is b0rken!!1"

Journeyman Geek

which reminds me. I need to prepare for my dad's HDD dying ;)

faker

16:02

keeping the door open is also great. The colleagues who sit across from that room will love us, it's not like it's noisy as hell

Journeyman Geek

lol

free heating though!

Cole

bbiab - going to lunch

voretaq7

@faker "white noise" - helps to ensure privacy in the cube farm

(except everyone is shouting to be heard over the fans)

@Tanner The virus just exposed the inner broken that was inside Windows all along

Tanner

@voretaq7 It's like driving a clunker and hitting a deer. Sure you pulled the deer out of the engine, but did you really expect it to work?

voretaq7

@Tanner YES!

Journeyman Geek

16:07

lol

faker

I closed the door now, they didn't prep it open, leave a sign or write an e-mail.
Let's see if it burns down during the weekend

Journeyman Geek

@Tanner: tho, needing to 'fix' such a system also exposes other failures. Lack of backups for example

there's some situations where you need to get the system back up first. Nukeing it from orbit is the best, but ideal fix. Sometimes you may not have the freedom to do that

Tanner

@JourneymanGeek I can't think of a situation where you would simultaneously not have the freedom to nuke a system, not have backups, and nobody involved is a fuckup of a sysadmin.

Wesley

ALRIGHT LET'S BUTTSCALE THIS THING!!

2

Oh, and help me kill this: serverfault.com/questions/545443/…

Journeyman Geek

@Tanner: heh, where I 'work' is like that

at this point, I just plan ahead for disaster ;p

Tanner

16:13

@JourneymanGeek Maybe I'm just pissed that our Citrix farm has encountered multiple viruses, has no backups, and the only rebuild process is undocumented and done via clicky-clicky...

Journeyman Geek

lol

@Tanner: sadly, thats reality for you

and part of fixing it is political, not technical

Wesley

@JourneymanGeek You're up late for you.

Journeyman Geek

yeah

Wesley

@JourneymanGeek Are you getting lots of random follows on G+?

It seems like spam accounts come in waves, and the last week I've had lots of people follow me for no reason. There's no connection between us, no hobbies, shared interests, groups, and they look like bots.

Journeyman Geek

not really

g+ has been quietish for me

voretaq7

16:20

You guys use g+?

MDMarra

g+ is a ghost town

Journeyman Geek

yeah

@MDMarra: probably why I use it

facebook is just too noisy

voretaq7

I use Twitter.
Facebook allows me to feed it my tweets, so I use facebook by one level of indirection

Journeyman Geek

haven't been on mine in ages

voretaq7

If g+ will let me feed it my tweets I will use that by one level of indirection also

(I really can't be assed to use more than one "social media" site. I'm lazy.)

Wesley

16:21

@voretaq7 Yeah, it's pretty good. I get good stuff from it.

voretaq7

@Wesley there's stuff on it?

really?

Wesley

@voretaq7 The allegations of Google+'s barrenness are greatly exaggerated. =P

That meme jumped the shark a while ago.

freiheit

@voretaq7 There's some vibrant, active communities there.

plus.google.com/u/0/communities/101791526784396691991

voretaq7

@Wesley not in mine

I have... one person on there who posts regularly

and he also posts on other places I actually check

@freiheit That community should be renamed to "BUY A GODDAMN BIKE @Wesley!"

freiheit

@voretaq7 I thought that community was right here <<<------>>>>

Wesley

16:31

@voretaq7 It's like anywhere else, you have to follow the right people and groups. Groups are good. I'm in some Linux user groups and whatnot. It's not a storm drain of gushing noise like Twitter though.

@freiheit Totally just asked to join.

freiheit

@Wesley You do realize that you have to have a bike, and ride your bike to your job to be a bike commuter, right?

@Wesley Maybe this community is more for you...

@Wesley No, wait, the hey look at shiny bikes nobody can actually get community is the one for you!

jscott

Aston Martin?! I don't even...

Journeyman Geek

lol

freiheit

@jscott factorbikes.com/astonmartin/specifications.html -- only £25,000!

(yes, that is unusually insanely expensive for a bicycle. Usually the top end expensive bikes are $8k-10k. maybe $12k for a custom insanely expensive bike)

jscott

I suppose Ed has one for spare parts in his shed then?

freiheit

16:41

2

Wesley

@freiheit You're not going to let me in are you. =(

@freiheit Are Ferrari bikes legit? I was never sure.

freiheit

@Wesley I'm not in charge. Don't let the #bikecommutercabal jersey I wore on my way to work fool you.

@Wesley Unless it's Peugeot, a bicycle from a car company is not legit. They're either "silly concept bicycle" or "2 to 10 times what that bike costs without the car company name slapped onto it".

Matt Bear

morning all

is there any decent alternative to solarwinds.com/server-application-monitor.aspx for server/application monitoring?

MDMarra

sup

tell me tales of your sharepoint consultant

Matt Bear

@MDMarra you don't want to hear them.... he's telling me theres no way to build a custom windows authentication page

MDMarra

16:49

hahaha

Matt Bear

I just gave him 5 links to guides showing how to do it...

MDMarra

so good

Matt Bear

what I would really like is a custom login page/web part for each site collection...

MDMarra

are you guys going to terminate his contract?

Matt Bear

using windows authentication

@MDMarra im thinking yeah...

MDMarra

16:50

well

technically that would be forms based authentication with an AD backend for auth, right?

Because Windows auth is automatic in the browser

I dont know much SP though, that's just IIS knowledge masquarading as SP knowledge

Matt Bear

@MDMarra tomaszrabinski.pl/wordpress/2011/06/23/…

something like that

MDMarra

oh cool

thats cool stuff

Nathan C

@MattBear Zabbix? zabbix.com

Matt Bear

I really don't see whats so hard... And I could of done it in the amount of time he's spent trying to understand it... And I don't know C# and ASP.Net

@NathanC Have you used it?

Nathan C

@MattBear I've been thinking about it. Seems much easier to use than Nagios.

Just haven't had the time to look further into it yet

MDMarra

16:55

I think the aussie cat uses zabbix

jscott

@MattBear Oh! forget that! Single space indentation and dangling curlies?! That person is clearly deranged.

Michael Hampton

Hell, I use Zabbix.

Nathan C

I'm really annoyed with this company that "provided" us with our sales portal. We have a sister company that does things a bit differently, and the company made a mess of it, and I have to be the one to clean it. -_-

Michael Hampton

0

I need your help to ask myself the good questions. I would like to define a partionning scheme for a debian server configured in RAID 10 (for the security) and LVM (independance of the disk size). The server will mainly run virtual machines on qemu/kvm. The server has four 2Tb HDD. SSD addition i...

84104

@MichaelHampton I almost want to say opinion based, but it's more of a do my job for me sort of thing.

voretaq7

17:16

15

Q: Unix Server Partitioning & Filesystem Layout

There's a lot of contradictory information about Unix server partitioning out on the internet, so I need some advice on how to proceed. So far, on the servers I in our test environment I didn't really care about partitioning and I configured a single monolithic / plus a swap partition. This par...

linux partition

Dup.

Nathan C

Hm, I was actually trying to find that particular one. :P

Matt Bear

ok... this is wierd

WDS issues

voretaq7

@MattBear Weirdness? THIS. IS. SYSTEM ADMINISTRATION!

(and then the core router took an arrow to the backplane)

2

Matt Bear

when I PXE boot one model of laptop, it uses the right deployment share, but when I boot a different model, it adds a $ to the end...

which is a problem, because it's not a hidden share

Wesley

@MattBear POOOOOOOP

2

Matt Bear

17:22

@Wesley I think im gonna go do that now

ill post pics

Cole

Having a girlfriend sucks.

MDMarra

so stop having one

Cole

I really should.

Not getting anything out of it

Nathan C

@Cole Especially if you're thinking that way...

Cole

@NathanC I'm not even getting laid

Nathan C

17:28

ouch...

Cole

Yeah

Tanner

@Cole wat

Cole

She is, mind you.

On her birthday she got off, and rolled over and went to sleep

"I don't like giving head"

Danila Ladner

interviewing senior linux engineer today, he has this fat juicy resume, what are good core questions where the answers derive from real knowledge and experience?

Cole

@DanilaLadner ohhhh

Magellan

17:30

Hulk-smash!

7

Q: Why buy high end hardware firewalls?

There exist firewalls from Juniper and Cisco that cost more than a house. So I wonder: what does one get from a $10.000+ firewall compared to an 2U server with 4x 10Gbit network cards running e.g. OpenBSD/FreeBSD/Linux? The hardware firewalls probably have a web interface. But what else does o...

linux firewall cisco juniper

Nathan C

@Magellan Why...it's 3 years old.

And accepted.

Cole

@DanilaLadner are you interviewing @ewwhite?

Danila Ladner

int 0x80?

-))

Mathias R. Jessen

@DanilaLadner Simulate a major outage - let him fix it :D

Cole

Told my friend that women are complicated. LOL you're telling me x.x I can't even figure myself out

Tanner

17:31

@NathanC Because if you removed the Gravatar that question would be -3.

Magellan

@NathanC It also sucks and should be closed so as to not provide fodder for the morons.

That and I'm tired of that user popping in continually and asking lazy shit questions.

Danila Ladner

@MathiasR.Jessen yeah it is hard to do in this situation

on the short notice

Nathan C

@MathiasR.Jessen Isn't that what Cisco does for certs? Give you a broken lab and say "go nuts"?

:P

Danila Ladner

but i think something like this is the best

MDMarra

@NathanC Only for CCIE

Danila Ladner

17:32

you see how people approach things

Nathan C

Ah.

Mathias R. Jessen

@NathanC MSFT did as well for Microsoft Certified Master and Microsoft Certified Architect

Nathan C

@DanilaLadner Then give him the scenario...especially how it would affect your particular shop.

"Everything is on fire. What do you do?" lol

84104

@Magellan Why do none of the top answers say that the hardware firewalls are probably doing their logic in hardware (FPGAs)?

Cole

@DanilaLadner wish my previous manager would respond. Dude has 22 years of Unix/Linux experience.

He can explain you pretty much any technology though.

Magellan

17:34

@84104 Don't look at me. I'm not a network engineer.

Nathan C

On another note, I really wish we had System Center or something. Remoting into a dozen VMs to reboot them for updates is tiring. lol

Danila Ladner

yeah, i usually ask you enter "ssh localhost" what is going on under the hood

Nathan C

I suppose I could auto-schedule them on the weekends for most of them.

Danila Ladner

but here i only have 30 minutes

Cole

Do you guys...text your significant other and/or friends a lot during the day?

MDMarra

17:35

@NathanC foreach ($server in $servers){ shutdown /m \\$Server /r /t 10}

Scripting bro, learn it.

Cole

BOOM

SCRIPT OR DIE

MDMarra

@Cole no

Nathan C

@MDMarra Yeah, I need to. The workload has been increasing the past few weeks...moar automation required

MDMarra

maybe once a day

sometimes not at all

Cole

Girlfriend, and 2 friends blow up my phone all day

Dennis Kaarsemaker

17:36

@Cole hardly

MDMarra

stop answering

Cole

I get "hello?" "???" "COLE?" if I don't respond to the gf

Ry Jones

@Cole fuck no too busy on irc or in here

MDMarra

Say "busy working"

Tanner

@Cole I've made it very clear to everyone in my life that if you text/call me 3 times in a work day, somebody better be dead.

Ry Jones

17:37

@Cole if you're on verizon, they have a desktop web client that's nice

Nathan C

I use facebook because for some really odd reason i get all my gf's texts in 4s or 5s

Cole

@RyJones on AT&T w/ an iPhone

Nathan C

it annoyed me enough to convince her to download the messenger app and use that instead lol

Cole

@MDMarra think I'm going to start doing that

I hate that I'm constantly looking at my phone.

Ry Jones

or leave your phone in the car

MDMarra

17:38

Put it on silent

check it a few times a day

Nathan C

@Cole I think as the relationship progresses texts become less and less common. I used to text her all the time ...now sometimes a few hours will go by since we're both busy. :P

Cole

@NathanC apparently not to this woman

We've been dating on and off since March, talking since last December.

@DanilaLadner friend said to have them explain in as much detail as possible the boot sequence of RHEL of x86

Danila Ladner

yeah, that is should be easy for senior

Cole

@DanilaLadner and what telnet google.com http does

ewwhite

@DanilaLadner hah

Cole

17:42

Also, ask him when doing a DNS lookup explain in as much detail as possible what happens in order to get a DNS response

Danila Ladner

if trivia, then more like what "allow-recursion" in bind means

Nathan C

That awkward moment when something was actually working 10 seconds prior, and now is completely broken.

I hate this software -_-

ewwhite

@DanilaLadner Trivia questions bore me.

Danila Ladner

or where and what sys_call_table var holds and does

It does bores me too

ewwhite

I think it's important to get inside of the engineer's head about how they approach problems.

Cole

17:43

How to make NIS default authentication mechanism. Where to configure authentication methods for different facilities. Explain tcpwrappers, tell me all the things you would do to harden a linux box.

Danila Ladner

but sometimes there are things engineer knows

Ry Jones

boo, hiss, last night's time lapse is out-of-focus

ewwhite

I mean, I've forgotten most of my cset and rtctl commands...

Danila Ladner

if he worked with linux

cset ha.

nice command

MDMarra

Say "You're joining a public cloud provider. They've built their whole infrastructure by hand. They don't patch anything. Things start failing and the Syrian Electronic Army hacks you. What do you do?"

Danila Ladner

17:44

shield

Cole

@MDMarra /snort

ewwhite

I just had a Red Hat interview... and surprisingly, they didn't go too deep with me.

but there are things that are assumed.

Ry Jones

@ewwhite I know a couple guys at RedHat, they seem OK

ewwhite

so you could poke holes and try to find weak points @DanilaLadner

Wesley

@MDMarra You go full buttscale!

Danila Ladner

17:45

@ewwhite + guy has every technology listed on his resume

ewwhite

but what is the role?

Wesley

@ewwhite So, just the tip?

Danila Ladner

infra unix senior engineer

Cole

@DanilaLadner wonder if you're interviewing...my old manager

ewwhite

@DanilaLadner What's important to the job?

Danila Ladner

17:46

This guy is from CUNY

NY

Cole

Ah nevermind

Danila Ladner

was senior engineer there.

@ewwhite don't break production shit

2

Wesley

@DanilaLadner Heyy, that would be fun to work there. I know a student there, working on his second doctorate.

ewwhite

@DanilaLadner Look at my old job ad, for instance.

Wesley

@ewwhite Just go work for braintree and be happy. =P

ewwhite

17:47

Ask about DB exposure, distribution choice... ask them to identify unique traits of RHEL 5 versus RHEL 6...

Storage, scripting... configuration management...

Dig into hardware...

ask for their opinion on the direction of the field, automation and the CLOUD

Cole

THERE IS NOTHING FOR ME TO DO

Ry Jones

@Cole take a time lapse

Cole

of?

Me falling asleep at my desk?

or lighting the building on fire?

Ry Jones

sure, whatever

jscott

Go study for your VCP.

Danila Ladner

17:50

@ewwhite where are the reqs for your old one?

Ry Jones

look, you have an eye problem. you can't see staying at work. go home

3

ewwhite

3 mins ago, by ewwhite

@DanilaLadner Look at my old job ad, for instance.

Magellan

@RyJones That's what I've been telling him!

ewwhite

Granted, I didn't do 70% of the items on that req...

Ry Jones

@Magellan I wonder how late everyone stayed - I left at 8, there were four carrying on

Magellan

17:52

@RyJones I was completely plowed and still getting drunker by the time I stumbled off the train. The Lady found me very amusing.

Even walked right past her car on the way to the usual spot she picks me up. Yeah. That drunk.

Ry Jones

@Magellan yeah, I spent about 90 minutes at the office sobering up

Cole

DFS question

ewwhite

0

A: How can a Linux Administrator improve their shell scripting and automation skills?

Is there still a place for engineers who do not/cannot keep up in the DevOps paradigm? "devops" is just a new word for something sysadmins have been doing for decades. Are we simply to assume that some people will be left behind as these technologies evolve? Quite the opposite. As t...

Anyone with any sort of engineering knowledge and technical skills will have a place to work.

Cole

Can you...have say a server in one location that servers data to those local users and a sever in another location (i.e. different country) server data there - with the same name?

MDMarra

@Cole are you talking about DFS namespaces?

ewwhite

17:55

@MDMarra Did you apply?

Cole

I think so

I don't know much about DFS, to be honest

MDMarra

@ewwhite No it's a devops position and I have no dev skills

Plus I'm happy where I am

Cole

They don't want the data to replicate at all, just all appear to be the same location

MDMarra

That would be more up @RyanRies alley I think

Cole

(this is for VDI reasons)

MDMarra

17:56

@Cole You want DFS Namespaces

Cole

@MDMarra Ok I thought so

thanks

ewwhite

@MDMarra Someone here... please apply to this job.

Windows Automation Engineer

Tower Research Capital LLC

powershellpythonasp.netc#.net

Tower Research Capital LLC, a high-frequency proprietary trading firm founded in 1998, seeks a Windows Automation…

Posted on Careers 2.0 on October 10, 2013

@DanilaLadner Tower is still hot, right?

I want to say I know someone there... so I can get free tickets to shit.

Ry Jones

@ewwhite what do they give tickets for?

Windows Automation Engineer

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