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18:00
I have to unplug my dryer any time I need to get one of my movies from the NAS
I got it! We'll use some flex duct from the NAS exhaust into the dryer's blower and then route the drum belt around one of the spindles.
Problem solved.
@ScottPack That plan is almost crazy enough to work
@ScottPack that's only half funny
You could just route the NAS exhaust through a large horizontal grill and dry everything flat on top of the grill.
@Basil Where did I fall short? Or is the unfunny half the part that's brilliant?
18:06
@ScottPack Needs more alcohol
@freiheit That could work for sweaters, and in fact is similar to my sweater drying rig, but laying everything out is annoying.
@freiheit I thought that was implied as part of the manufacturing process.
@ScottPack yep
@ScottPack Which part of the manufacturing process involves uttering your last words: "hold my beer"?
2
@freiheit That's probably when you either tie in the drum or power it on.
I imagine getting enough torq of the disks would be.....interesting.
18:12
@freiheit None. We don't trust you not to drink it.
@freiheit We also don't trust you not drinking.
@voretaq7 It's easy to trust me not to drink your beer. Just make sure it's a crappy beer, like a budweiser and it's totally safe with me.
@freiheit Well I'M not going to drink that chilled-down carbonated clydesdale piss either!
@voretaq7 You just handed me a Heady Topper? What? What beer? I don't know what you're talking about. You must've handed it to Scott...
So what have I missed today?
Other than thinking this is lazy....
1
Q: Add RAM to VMware VM with scheduled task?

er_tomasI need to add RAM to a web server on a production environment. The server is a Windows 2008 server VM running on ESXi 5 that does not support hot plugging of memory. I want to add RAM to it and it has to be done outside working hours. I am wondering if it's possible to schedule a task to add th...

18:22
@freiheit Gah. You people.
@freiheit I smelled a beer last week that had so much freaking Cascade that it smelled like a forest.
Don't get me wrong, I like gin, but I don't want to be drinking muddled pine needles.
@ScottPack Cascade tastes more citrusy than piney to me...
There's a local brewer that actually makes a beer with redwood tips, because it can't just be muddled pine needles, it has to be a specific varietal of young muddled pine needles. ;)
I just don't get the IPA craze. I get how it started, but then craft brewers figured out that there were beers other than pilsners and bitters.
(actually, that beer really isn't bad. nice flavor)
@freiheit Joke's on him. I rebottled everything - that's just water :)
@ScottPack IPAs are easier to make well than pilsners. Bitters are pretty much just small IPAs with (usually) different hops than american IPAs.
18:25
@freiheit Artesinal beer made with locally sourced organic fair trade redwood tips.
Also, I like hops. I love hops. I would marry hops, if it was legal in this state.
@freiheit Bitter is just an IPA with less hops, you know, a PA. :)
Move to Colorado.
@ScottPack Hard to get the organic certification on a 500+ year old tree...
@freiheit That's the trick, don't do it in California. No certification necessary.
@ScottPack I've got a nice red IPA in my fridge, actually.
18:31
Crazy people. I tell ya.
Though when you start talking about marrying things all bets are off - there's actually still a state constitutional amendment barring gay marriage, to say nothing of marrying hops. So it's "civil unions" instead.
Mmmmm IPA's
0
Q: Enabled WOL - Now my computer powers on by itself

jarod1701To use the wake on LAN feature of my onboard network interface, I had to enable "Wake on PCI-Express" in my BIOS settings. WOL works fine now. The only problem is that my computer turns itself on without me sending a MagicPacket. Sometimes it happens only a few seconds after I shut it down using ...

@ShaneMadden Same here. Hell, based on the wording that was on the ballot it could easily have invalidated my marriage since it was performed by a judge instead of a religious person.
@ShaneMadden I may have tried to propose marriage to the best beer I'd ever had a year or two ago, but to be fair it was after drinking several of them...
@ScottPack In addition to an eclectic collection of IPAs and other hoppy beers in my fridge, I also have sour beer, fruity beer, dark malty beer and at least one pilsner... The common element here: I like beer.
18:36
Yes. Beer is god.
@freiheit Ooh, that does look tasty. Looks like the big store near me has a couple of their other beers, but not that one.
You know, I meant good but i'm going to leave it.
Question
Would Near-Line SAS drives be fine performance wise for a file server?
My boss is really pushing that they be SAS
@ShaneMadden It's never bottled, only kegged. Very limited release in their own pub and with accounts that regularly sell their other beers. The "Elder" version is bottled and a lot easier to find.
@cole Depends on the file server, but probably, as long as it's not getting beaten on too hard
18:40
@ShaneMadden yeah I would think
I mean shit, they're dumping raw data to USB 2.0 drives now
@cole yes.
Today's Wednesday, right?
SAS is important... but nearline SAS will do fileserver duty
@ScottPack Probably.
@ScottPack Yes
@ewwhite Thanks, I thought so.
18:47
@ScottPack Only for the rest of the day.
He'll still probably want to go SAS - but hey, at least I was right
and that's what matters.
@cole actually, it depends on the form factor of the disks.
if 3.5" drives, I'd use nearline SAS. If 2.5" I'd use enterprise SAS.
3.5"
K. For 3.5", the biggest enterprise SAS disks you'll find ate 15k 600GB. But for nearline, it's 1,2,3,4TB.
for 2.5" disks, the largest nearline is 1TB. The biggest enterprise SAS is 1.2TB.
@ewwhite yeah and that's why I'm like....this is to dump raw lab data. Which can get up to 1TB in size w/ one dump
@ewwhite manager is probably going to make me go with 16 x 2.5" 1.2TB SAS drives.
In.....you guessed it, RAID5
18:51
Eek. Go RAID6 at least.
@cole 900GB is the sweet spot. You can use RAID5 for those.
@ShaneMadden refuses to
I wouldn't do it for more than 12 disks, though
@ewwhite I agree
@ShaneMadden I have VMware stuff for you
18:52
but he won't listen to me.
87
Q: What are the different widely used RAID levels and when should I consider them?

MDMarra This is a Canonical Question about RAID levels. What are: the RAID levels typically used (including the RAID-Z family)? deployments are they commonly found in? benefits and pitfalls of each?

Show him that
@ShaneMadden I have, no fucks given
@ewwhite Uh oh. Hit me.
@cole this is a SAN, right?
@cole Ouch.
18:52
@ewwhite nope
Dell R720
@ShaneMadden ESXi host crashed yesterday for a client.
local storage
@cole k
@ShaneMadden The reason for the crash was a heavy data transfer between windows guests using the Intel e1000 virtual NIC.
That dead Dell ESXi host I mentioned yesterday? Dell are sending an engineer out to replace the motherboard, NIC card, and riser card.
@ewwhite Doesn't that hurt your eyes?
18:54
@ewwhite Repeatable or fluke?
we had this happen at Logicworks... and the resolution was to get rid of the e1000 drive on Windows guests.
@ShaneMadden It happens... communities.vmware.com/thread/457377
and I want to understand why VMware can be so sloppy
@ewwhite I think kernel problems like this are just ones that sneak past their testing, honestly.
@ShaneMadden seeing it at scale was terrible.
Wonder if anyone will notice if I fall asleep at my desk.
but yesterday was just a small 3-host cluster
18:58
@ewwhite Yeah, I bet
it's embarrassing to have to tell the client that what they've done for so long; accepted the virtual hardware defaults, is just wrong now
It's not like the e1000 is some old unsupported virtual hardware or something - vmxnet3s can be problematic as well sometimes
@ShaneMadden at the last job, we had to move the Windows VMs to vmxnet3 and EL5 Red Hat VMs to e1000.
@ewwhite Heh, awesome. We had one yesterday where a vmxnet3 was dropping packets like crazy on a windows VM. Old driver.
That thread's saying it's fixed in 5.1u2, I wonder if that's actually the case.
@ShaneMadden no
present in 5.5
I just updated the cluster to the newest 5.5 patch
following the crash
19:02
5.1u2's still a newer build
well, that's not an option
VMware ESXi 5.1 Update 2 1483097
ESXi550-201312001 1474528
Since the platform is 5.5
I'm not sure that you're supposed to compare build numbers across product lines.
"ESXi host experiences a purple diagnostic screen with errors for E1000PollRxRing and E1000DevRx" listed as fixed
well, they did say Q1 2014
19:06
How did they not get that into 5.5 yet..
Oh, here's the KB. kb.vmware.com/kb/2059053‎
Jun 7 '13 at 3:45, by Michael Hampton
So, take the e1000 VMs and switch them to vmxnet3, and take the vmxnet3 VMs and switch them to e1000.
Definitely admits they've fixed in 5.0, 5.1, not yet fixed in 5.5
Killing the receive side scaling in the guest OS seems like a simpler workaround.
@ShaneMadden at the cloud company, this was a bitch to deal with... 8-9 months ago!
@ewwhite Yeah it's a little mind-blowing that they haven't fixed this in 5.5.
Today in 1991:
Tim Berners-Lee introduces WorldWideWeb, the first web browser and WYSIWYG HTML editor.

and yet...here we are...light years ahead....chatting...
4
19:11
@TheCleaner light years ahead.... spamming, begging for free help, facebooking, and all the other worse-than-useless activities the modern web allows.
@HopelessN00b Well Khan Academy and a few others get overshadowed by Reddit and other crap.
@ShaneMadden so why can VMware do this? It looks bad.
Holy shit
Holy shit
Hey, speaking of VMware, @ewwhite how do you (or do you) get vCenter to not bitch about SSH being enabled on your hosts? (With the warning icon and the "configuration issues" thing in the host summary page.)
My manager said "Just makes sure they're not running <one of our products> and you're right, NL-SAS would be fine"
O_O
@_@
19:19
@ewwhite Now that I've got a former VMware employee in the office I've gotten some historical context. Apparently after the absolute disaster of SSO in 5.1, they have just completely restructured their development cycles to be a lot more focused on actually releasing a product that works well.
@HopelessN00b disable ssh
@cole So, the lesson here is: don't run the products your company makes?
@HopelessN00b which version
@cole If I agree not to run any of your products, you think he'll sign off on 12 4TB NL-SAS drives for my server?
@ewwhite 5.1
@freiheit just need some performance for analytic data :)
We make some cool shit
19:22
@HopelessN00b k. It's an Advanced parameter.
Click Advanced Settings in the Software menu.
Navigate to UserVars > UserVars.SuppressShellWarning.
Set the value from 0 to 1.
@ewwhite Effing awesome. Thanks.
Apparently max storage vMotions per datastore is a setting in vpxd.cfg instead of in advanced settings.
I decided not to bother and kicked the I/O latency up to a second with the 8 simultaneous migrations.
@ewwhite Feel like whoring that knowledge out for some rep?
@HopelessN00b no
Cool. Won't bother asking on the main, then.
19:27
@HopelessN00b In 5.5, it is a button on the web interface
@ewwhite whoa...Ed DOES know vmware...
@ewwhite Heh, cool. We actually just used the web interface for the first time this month...
I wish the web interface were as capable as the fat client.
@TheCleaner sometimes
For instance, you can't set a format change to thin provisioning when you're doing a mass storage vMotion in the web client.
It's a good direction for them to move in, but it seems like it's been at the cost of some of the interface predictability that made them successful in the first place.
19:37
@ShaneMadden version 6 has every bit of functionality in the web client, even VCUM
@Chopper3 Finally!
@ShaneMadden there's a website I use... It basically maps functions to the web client in sphere... e.g. "How do I get to X"
@ewwhite Haha, nice.
Anonymous
Anonymous
the horror
19:42
@Chopper3 VMware is losing
@ewwhite losing what? percentage? it was inevitable, what was once rare in IT always becomes commodity, why do you think they're constantly buying other products to bolt on
@Chopper3 losing my confidence...
VMware used to be a slam-dunk.
I had ESXi4 systems that ran for years.
and now, I have guest VMs crashing my HOSTS!
@ewwhite Been a bad year for your preferred solutions, hasn't it? This, HP's firmware debacle... at this rate, you'll be admitting Windows is superior to Linux by May.
@HopelessN00b VMware is dying to me... Their VSAN cock-tease has run its course, and I've had to move on. Nexenta is dead. HP is disappointing... Red Hat hasn't been too hot... I'm giving up on IT.
19:49
Yeah, the more experience I get in IT, the less I like it. Seems that information and technology are only peripherally related to the actual job/career.
@PatoSáinz Not bad, not bad. Looks pretty dry.
@HopelessN00b it's about solutions...
And I'm just more conservative in what I recommend now.
It's really hard to get hard about virtualization these days, though.
@ewwhite Yeah, I usually like solutions. Water-ethanol solutions in particular, but technical solutions too.
... just seems that more and more problems are people problems, or management problems, or stupid corporate insanity problems, where technical solutions aren't applicable.
@ewwhite So, moving into mac mini colo?
@ShaneMadden Old news. Raspberry pi colocation is the new thing.
Shit, that question got baleeted. :(
19:56
@HopelessN00b well, that's okay.
raspberrycolocation.com ... what a domain.
Hey @HopelessN00b can you remind me of the search query again for mytags + 0 answers? I can't find yesterday's conversation for some reason
@ewwhite Maybe. Kinda makes it hard to get my geek on. Plus, my disdain for stupidity... and people in general... make the non-technical parts of IT pretty unpalatable.
@HopelessN00b Deming would say it was the process not the person...but we in IT know better!
@TheCleaner answers:0 intags:mine for questions with no answers in your favorited tags.
20:01
I am going to start printing out copies of hier(7) for the various operating systems on little wooden crosses, and crucifying people to them when I catch them ignoring the hierarchy convention for their system...
@voretaq7 That's why I install my entire app into /usr/share including logs and pid files.
@ScottPack Put your hands on the manpage and hold still, I'm not a great shot with this pneumatic nailer.
@ChrisS that poor woman
@voretaq7 Fucking puppet-dashboard
2
@ScottPack ;)
WTF is that?!?
20:11
@ewwhite Because /usr/share/puppet-dashboard/tmp/log is the perfect place to write gigs worth of report processing each day.
2
Oh, dammit. So EMC wrote their Unisphere Service Manager app in Java... so much for my plan to avoid using Java by getting away from the web management console. >:/
@ewwhite hopefully this isn't part of someone's job application.
mmm coffee.
@FalconMomot It's from HP
20:30
@ewwhite FUCKYOUDIEINANUCLEAREXPLOSION!
@ScottPack Hmm. Can puppet or chef be used for ESXi hosts?
@HopelessN00b HP continues to disappoint
@HopelessN00b I'm not sure.
@ewwhite They've clearly found what they're good at... makes sens that they'd continue doing it.
@HopelessN00b Google seems to indicate yes.
> VMware and Puppet Labs have co-developed modules for managing VMware virtual environments. Much of this work is discussed in a personal blog entry written by Nick Weaver, an automation architect at VMware.
20:33
@ScottPack wut?
Damn. Guess I'm gonna learn how to puppet. Pity there's no Windows-native thingy for this.
"Daily close vote limit reached" -- Really?
@ewwhite I just did a google for "puppet esx" and clicked on one of the first 3 or 4 hits.
What's the verb form of puppet? Pupetting? My dictionary seems to think I mean "petting."
@ScottPack Just be glad google doesn't think you're a pervert after googling for 'puppet esx'.
20:35
#GetCovered: http://www.HealthCare.gov, http://t.co/aLgNi2Bq4l
@HopelessN00b "systems admnistration"
I think I just died a little inside
@MatthewIfe That's not why.
@ScottPack meh...
@ScottPack I know why you googled for it ;). But sometimes google can be helpful in fixing what it thinks are typos ;)
20:37
@voretaq7 WHAT. THE. FUCKING. SHIT?!?!?!
@MatthewIfe What I mean is that it's not why Google thinks I'm a pervert.
I'm 22 pages into Limoncelli's book (hadn't read it before) and I've already found over a dozen things I don't agree with. This does not bode well for my temper :)
@HopelessN00b dogeshit.
@ScottPack oh right ;) I claimed it didn't. Dont drop yourself in it!
20:38
@HopelessN00b puppetizing
@ScottPack The automatic VM creation stuff is enterprise-only.
Theoretically.
Yes, the government actually tweeted that. It's like they're trying to make the argument for killing them all and starting over fresh.
3
The host management stuff just uses rbvmomi, I think with some effort you could get open source puppet creating VMs.
@ShaneMadden I call bullshit. You just made that word up.
2
@ShaneMadden I'm actually more interested in applying the same configuration/settings to my ESXi hosts. SSH, ntp, etc.
20:40
I would like to punch myself in the face right now.
@DennisKaarsemaker Can you give an example?
My manage wants to integrate our Sun boxes into Dell OpenManage which means I need to find the MIBs for the Sun hardware.
I'm debating whether to read this Limoncelli Bible
@HopelessN00b It can totally do that.
@ewwhite it's pretty good
20:41
@HopelessN00b That's reasonably easy.
@HopelessN00b Kind of a functionality overlap with host profiles though
I wouldn't puppetize ESXi
@ewwhite I won't. There's lots of good stuff in there too (at least in the first 20 pages :)) - just don't take anything for granted, apply common sense
Having puppetized the full provisioning of a 3 node linked mode group on 5.1 (with the pure evil version of SSO): don't puppetize vCenter.
@ewwhite You wouldn't but we've all seen your environments.
2
20:42
@ShaneMadden host profiles don't cover everything.
@ewwhite Yeah, true.
and some things I disagree with are specific to how we work (e.g. we don't do maintenance windows. Just make sure everything is redundant and you can take things down without service downtime)
@DennisKaarsemaker that's environment-specific
@ShaneMadden Yeah, kind of an overlap, but not a complete one. Honestly, the perversion of a being a Windows-focused SA with puppet skills appeals to me.
I've got some really cool puppetized windows stuff
20:44
@ewwhite yeah, I'm spoiled by having the budget to do this. Our IT budget this year has 7 zeroes
Just... vCenter is not one that I would do again.
err, I can't count. Make that 8.
@DennisKaarsemaker :( The only 7 zeros IT has around here are our 7 managers.
@DennisKaarsemaker that's nice and all
@HopelessN00b heh, classic :)
20:45
When I'm upgrading to 5.5 I might take a look at if the module is easily ported, but the main serious problem with the process is the command line arguments needed for a silent install of all of the various vCenter components were poorly (or not at all) documented
@ShaneMadden you shouldn't automate it.
and certain components seem incapable of installing at all in a non-interactive windows session.
@DennisKaarsemaker I shit you not, we have 7 managers for 6 FTEs. And somehow can't get approval to add headcount.
even running cloud infra based on VMware, there were too many components to automate the process.
20:46
@ewwhite Yeah, yeah... I know that know. Puppet had released a module for 5.0 (forge.puppetlabs.com/puppetlabs/vcenter), I was like "How hard can it be to switch to 5.1 and add linked mode support?"
@mossy Too late. Scroll up. ChrisS beat you to that one.
damn.
guess i'll go back to work.
@HopelessN00b do some headcount reduction with a shovel...
grrr....I'm setting up 3 SF accounts and building up each so I can use each one for daily close votes...
@DennisKaarsemaker Nah, we have guns on this country. If it were up to me, I'd be reducing management bloat with my .45.
20:50
@HopelessN00b this Limoncelli book also has a chapter on how to deal with managers. May be useful for you :)
Oh, I suddenly remembered why we don't use host profiles.

Call "HostProfileManager.CreateProfile" for object "HostProfileManager" on vCenter Server "[redacted]" failed.
The VMware vSphere 5 Standard license for Host [redacted] does not include vSphere Host Profiles. Upgrade the license.
@DennisKaarsemaker No offense to the guy, but he never met our managers. And I suspect he didn't have the misfortune of working in an environment where managers actually outnumber workers.
@HopelessN00b Easy way to do this... just copy your settings and leave the IP on DHCP. More complete than host profiles..
@ewwhite Oh, much likey. Thanks. Again. This looks like something I can push through PowerShell, even... (to deal with hostnames and IPs). Intriguing.
@HopelessN00b completely, in fact
@HopelessN00b Hah! That'll do it. In that case: forge.puppetlabs.com/vmware/vcenter
20:59
@ShaneMadden My approach is smoother

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