The Comms Room

growse

20:01

Why is there no pie?

Pie is the only thing that is equally awesome as a starter, main and pudding

David

@growse pudding?

growse

It's what you have after dinner

but only if you've eaten all your greens

jscott

I though you had coffee after dinner.

growse

you have coffee in the morning, after toast

silly

jscott

Boy, I really need to get these things in the proper order.

growse

20:07

:)

Adrian

Can somebody post me the URL for the Hacked Server Nuclear explosion image?

David

Anyone have any idea why it'd take like over a day for Time Machine to backup 37GB?

Adrian

I have an old friend who learned his lesson all over again after his home server got nailed twice in 2 weeks.

84104

growse

Because Time Machine is shit?

David

20:09

I've never had any problem with it on my Macbook Pro

growse

(sorry, not helpful :()

David

but on this server...jeesh

Adrian

@84104 Thank you!

David

i'm outta here for the day

good day all

Adrian

I'm eerily entranced by the sheer masculinity of the Logstash mustache. It's kinda creepy.

WesleyDavid

20:18

@84104 You have to pay @Iain royalties now.

jollyroger

I always thought Perl and later Python to be great tools for administrators. Hopefully these languages support in linux distros are pretty good. But for some reasons I see tonns of sysadmin applications written in Ruby which is a pain in the ass when it comes to system install and package management, bundlers, poor I/o, rvm et cetera. WHY???

84104

@WesleyDavid Why I stole it from some forums that google linked to?

@jollyroger Some version of python is on every Linux system.

Well, most anyway.

Basil

@jollyroger sh > bash > perl > all the rest of that stuff

Aaron Copley

@Holocryptic around?

Basil

Write a script in sh, and it works everywhere

Joel

20:20

@jollyroger Ruby is said to follow the principle of least astonishment (POLA), meaning that the language should behave in such a way as to minimize confusion for experienced users.

WesleyDavid

@Joel Whereas perl follows the POMW? (Principle Of Maximum WTF)

Adrian

We got a bunch of folks here using Splunk, right?

84104

@WesleyDavid Perl - We use regex for everything!

WesleyDavid

@84104 You use regex to parse your regex.

perl programmers can parse HTML with regex!

Zoredache

@WesleyDavid No, I think Perl programmers is what you get when you try to parse HTML with a regex.

Joel

20:22

craigslist.org/about/best/phi/471580402.html

Basil

jollyroger

@Basil any monitoring system whitten in sh? No. Perl? MRTG comes in mind, nagios scripts, etc. Luckily for Python protagonists there's munin, but anyway even PHP has zabbix which is more luckily to be installed together with everythiong else in LAMP server. Cacti, then. A whole bunch of stuff. But lots of "log analyzers" on Ruby, puppet goes for Ruby too. And every other "new" thing is 90% written in Ruby.

Aaron Copley

@WesleyDavid I went to an introductory Perl workshop on Saturday. I was WTF'ing in about 20 minutes. And I have a few years of C++ under my belt so I know a bit about OOP.

84104

@jollyroger gems are shinny?

Basil

@jollyroger sh isn't perfect by a long shot, but it works everywhere.

Adrian

20:26

@Joel That would be a Jeniffer. Met one of her last summer. Neglected to mention that she was supposedly engaged, but was probably actually married.

jollyroger

@84104 you mean shitty? For system install - yes. Every other 'meant to be used by admins" tool requires exactly specific gem version no matter what. This gives a huge pain for maintainers.That's why lots of ruby software isn't in Debian still.

@Basil I use Python when there's something sh cannot do in 30 lines. And it's portable as well on 90% of linux distros

84104

@jollyroger I don't deal much with Ruby. It's bash/php/python for me.

Basil

@jollyroger I don't know whether someone asked for it, but the only thing that's installed on my AIX machine is perl, and that's an old version that supports the OS level we're stuck on.

MikeyB

Hey, that reminds me, who wanted the AIX machine to play around on?

jollyroger

@84104 the same for me. But nevertheless I'm going to crack that Ruby because I want to know how to write puppet modules and read others' modules as well

Joel

20:30

@84104 What do you use for configuration management

@MikeyB It was me!

Is NFS the thing to use if I want to access file shares over an ocean-spanning VPN?

It should ideally appear as a drive letter in Windows Server 2008 R2.

brb turning it into a question

MikeyB

Mar 29 at 15:52, by MikeyB

OK, who wanted that AIX shell account? SSH as root to 216.16.235.103. Password is two "obvious passwords" that have come up recently concatenated together.

Joel

@MikeyB You are a gentleman and a scholar sir

84104

@Joel Regrettably, it's all by hand these days, but given that most things are one offs, it's hard to spend political capitol advocating something else.

Adrian

@Joel Frankly, I'd use something other than NFS unless it were around the corner or at least on a dedicated link that doesn't have to go out to the general internet.

Joel

@Adrian Open to suggestions. SMB is doing terribly

Adrian

20:36

@Joel NFS sucks too. But I have no suggestions since that's the sucky solution we're using.

wfaulk

who knows how HP FRUs work?

Adrian

everytime someone says FRU I think hydroponics and grow lights. shrug

Joel

@MikeyB I have no idea what the password is

84104

@Joel hunter2password1 ?

Adrian

Hey now. I haven't typed my password into the chat windows in weeks. =D

WesleyDavid

20:38

Flags... invalid!!

I want a userscript to auto-invalidate flags from the Bridge.

Adrian

@WesleyDavid Bridge again?

WesleyDavid

@Adrian Actually, no, it was English Language.

Adrian

ROFL

WesleyDavid

But I always vote invalid because I'm a liberal Oregonian that always wants to fight the power. =P

84104

WesleyDavid

20:40

@84104 Not enough torture and suffering.

84104

@WesleyDavid If it doesn't show up on the first page of my google search it doesn't exist!

That better? It's got a more medieval thing going.

WesleyDavid

84104

@WesleyDavid Flagged for lack of flags.

Adrian

@WesleyDavid Woo! Hometown Prestige!

Jeff Ferland

@Joel GlusterFS

WesleyDavid

20:42

@Adrian Gallopin' Gertie repre sent!!

Adrian

@JeffFerland Just as long as you don't run it on shit hardware, you're fine.

Jeff Ferland

1

Q: Distributed filesystem across a slow link

I have an image in my head where a link is too slow to realize the real-time transfer of files, but fast enough to catch up every day. What I'd like to see is a master <-> master setup where when I write a file to Server A, the metadata will transfer to Server B immediately and the file will t...

WesleyDavid

@Joel I made you an account in my HPUX server. The password is "How does squid face sugar an urge? After dog balls whistles the needless ruin. An expected razor smiles on top of the cosy crunch. Geese sections peanut butter. Knickers resides in vomit after the gradual. When will the farthest mechanism believe next to boxers? Vomit quits a spread pie. Smoopie updates hematoma past the storm. The elegant incompetent buttons knickers beside the shaping astronomy."

Your shell times out in sixty seconds. CAN. YOU. MAKE IT?!

Joel

@JeffFerland I actually want the FSes to be separate, and to copy from one FS to another through some network protocol

MikeyB

@Joel Did you get the password?

Joel

20:53

@MikeyB I got pulled away from my desk, sorry. Once more?

MikeyB

@WesleyDavid Please tell me you have a generator for that.

WesleyDavid

@MikeyB And the race is on to see who can log in and change the password first!

MikeyB

@WesleyDavid I won.

WesleyDavid

@MikeyB Yes, you did.

sad face

Joel

Who got my wall :D

MikeyB

20:55

Broadcast message from root@localhost (pts/0) at 15:47:56 ...
root GTFO

Nice ;P

Joel

@MikeyB Hooray!

This is like some kind of dream world where everything is familiar and weird at the same time

84104

@MikeyB Looks like a Markov chain, but no clue what the input source would be. The spelling and grammar is too good for regular internet.

Joel

@84104 It's not a Markov chain, it's generated BY a Markov chain

@MikeyB What am I allowed to do? Is this a physical box

MikeyB

@Joel It's a physical box, yeah. Don't do anything that would piss off anyone else on the Internet or local network. Other than that, go nuts.

84104

@Joel What do you call the product of a Markov chain (or should I say Markov chaining)? Should I go ask English or Math?

MikeyB

21:02

@84104 output

Joel

@84104 I'd call it the locus of all the points that satisfy a given case of a Markov chain

one of the possible loci

84104

Right I'm going to go with "Markovian output" until that pisses someone off.

Joel

@MikeyB Do you have any documentation? Also thanks again, this is awesome to play with

MikeyB

@Joel IBM's online docs (search for aix infocenter) is pretty good. Also: smit

Joel

@MikeyB On it, thanks. How was it used before you let me touch it?

MikeyB

21:12

@Joel I extended / to 1GB, that was it.

Joel

@MikeyB I mean, I assume it was in duty doing some useful business task. Just trying to get an impression of what to try

MikeyB

@Joel I think that one used to run DB2 and Domino

Adrian

eeek! Domino! running hiding

Joel

22:22

1

Q: Accessing a file share across an ocean (through a VPN)

I am in the process of setting up a log shipping scenario with two SQL Servers linked via VPN (Barracuda NG Firewall, for what it's worth). The VPN is using UDP and packet compression, so I don't have the "TCP over TCP" issue. Of course, I need the actual files to get copied across, and I'd like ...

windows-server-2008 vpn network-share

I don't like the "spend money on a protocol that is patently bad at this" approach.

WesleyDavid

@Joel First thing I thought was "Riverbed" but Erik beat me to it.

I don't know of a latency tolerant protocol though.

Probably is one, but the mind-cost as well as money-cost might be more than just getting a wan optimizer going.

Joel

@WesleyDavid That would be best. The tunnel (and compression) is already there. I just need something lightning quick and accessible to SQL server.

That's what rules out a simple HTTP GET or something. HTTP is useless to SQL Agent.

ewwhite

That is a Barracuda I CAN'T get behind...

Joel

@ewwhite Go on?

ewwhite

Oh, they didn't give me a good overview of its purpose.

But I think they're positioning it an alternative to Peplink or Elfiq, but with add-on modules.

How is it?

Joel

22:33

@ewwhite Unfortunately we have the F100, which is the entry-level device. It takes a dump about every 4-5 days and must be power cycled

Apart from that, I actually like it a lot

ewwhite

damn, so the hardware/software isn't quite there yet?

Tacticus

22:50

@Joel what are your options for your file link?

actually you could do inotify triggered rsyncs?

oh wait windows :\

Scott Pack

@Joel DTN is pretty latency tolerant.

Joel

@Tacticus That's entirely the problem, it has to be something SQL Agent can access without too much hackery

@ScottPack Googlin', thank you

Tacticus

@Joel give them a filedir that you sync with another tool?

Joel

@Tacticus That results in a race condition of sorts where SQL agent could try to restore and fail, depending on how long the other tool takes to finish

Tacticus

23:05

ack :\

WesleyDavid

Delay-tolerant networking

Delay-tolerant networking (DTN) is an approach to computer network architecture that seeks to address the technical issues in heterogeneous networks that may lack continuous network connectivity. Examples of such networks are those operating in mobile or extreme terrestrial environments, or planned networks in space. Recently, the term disruption-tolerant networking has gained currency in the United States due to support from DARPA, which has funded many DTN projects. Disruption may occur because of the limits of wireless radio range, sparsity of mobile nodes, energy resources, attack, a...

Scott Pack

Ok, I'm pretty annoyed that my peeps aren't on that Wikipedia page.

Jeff Ferland

@WesleyDavid That's annoying

WesleyDavid

@JeffFerland You know what else is annoying?

Adrian

his face?

WesleyDavid

23:17

@Adrian Yeah.

Jeff Ferland

@WesleyDavid Cats

WesleyDavid

@JeffFerland No, cats are evil. Big difference. =P

Adrian

@JeffFerland Especially cats that try to eat my lunch through the ziploc bag.

Jeff Ferland

@WesleyDavid Not mutually exclusive

Joel

@Adrian One time I left a Jack in the Box burger on my desk at home, then got called away for about 10 minutes. By the time I got back, my cat had eaten the burger, BUN AND LETTUCE AND ALL

Adrian

23:20

@WesleyDavid I noticed, however, that while there are delay-tolerant research projects, the protocols aren't exactly making it to the public implementation phase.

84104

I hate CentOS right now.

Adrian

@Joel dang. When had you last fed that thing? And were you expecting it to start eating you next?

WesleyDavid

@Joel That is one hardcore cat. Did you make him give it back?

Joel

@84104 Why?

Adrian

@84104 Always and Forever. But slightly less than I hate some other OSs.

WesleyDavid

23:21

@84104 The answer is always --nodeps

Joel

@Adrian I feed the little bastard at least twice a day

84104

It start with it's wrong location for the kerberos binaries.

Adrian

@Joel Yep. Evil. That's one's evil.

Joel

@84104 Just bear in mind that if you say CentOS stores it "wrong," then Red Hat also stores it "wrong"

84104

Which are in /usr/kerberos/bin and /usr/kerberos/sbin, instead of /usr/bin, where they're supposed to be.

Adrian

23:22

I bet it had the most horrid gastric distress afterwards too.

84104

Then it was the ancient version it's using, which doesn't do dns lookups by default.

Then it was that it thinks its domain is localdomain, despite hostname -d returning the right answer.

@Joel Yes, I suppose it could widen it to Red Hat and prodigy.

Oh, and now it's that I can't install a clean test because the test box has a GPT layout (it's less than 2GB).

Installer refuses to just wipe it out an put a MBR in place. -_-

I want to mail these people a face seeking cuddle-fish right now.

Adrian

While the boss talks a good game about "focusing on core needs" and out-sourcing everything else, I think they're going to balk when they realize it's going to be >$1000/month to out-source email.

84104

@Adrian And they don't get to fire anyone, right?

Joel

@Adrian It's like you're really taking your bosses on a tour through the last 15 years' worth of advancements in IT!

Adrian

@84104 We don't have enough people to be firing anyone. We just fired a new Jr., in fact.

@Joel Feels closer to 15 decades some days.

If anything, they're getting a crash-course on the IT side of running a real business.

84104

23:36

@Adrian They one who blew up the terminal server today?

Adrian

@84104 No, that's the L2. He's taken his lumps in stride on it and managed to fix some of the damage. I'm just not sure I trust the install anymore after he overwrote the entire /etc directory from the old one.

I think he also did something else like a poorly-formatted rsync that reset a bunch of files that he didn't mention. The /home partition doesn't usually ship 770 and root.root.

84104

@Adrian Indeed. 755 root.root

WesleyDavid

GAHHRRR - stupid built-ins tripping me up when I think I'm using an external binary. >_<

Adrian

@84104 Exactly. We've had problems with under-skilled L2 engineers. There's days I think I'm not very good, but I'm a far sight better than the pair of L2s that the boss has hired.

At least this particular padawan is a fairly likeable fellow. The other one was an arrogant PFY ITT grad.

84104

@WesleyDavid dir

WesleyDavid

23:42

@84104 nice

@Adrian Most days I feel like I'd barely make it as a L2 in most places. =|

84104

@WesleyDavid No, that one is external.

@Adrian I was (might still be) a L0. I do L1-L3 stuff. I am not happy about this (really just the pay part).

Joel

@84104 If there's one thing I've learned it's that there's no leapfrogging

If there's a single type of L1 task you haven't mastered, you're still an L1.

This can be highly contextual depending on specialization, but the idea is that you can't possibly be considered L2 if you don't know how to calculate subnets, for example

WesleyDavid

@84104 Hmm... some are saying that nice is a builtin. Strangely, it's not bash 3.2.25

Perhaps it's builtin to other shells?

84104

~ $ which nice
/usr/bin/nice

Adrian

@84104 My pay isn't too bad, really. Especially considering that we're a non-profit. It's probably why I haven't pushed quite as hard on the job search as I should be too.

Holy Fscking Hell. How do you Windows folks keep track of the constellation of Windows products?

WesleyDavid

23:48

I wasn't aware that `which` showed any differentiation between builtins and external commands. For example, `pwd` is a builtin for bash and yet:

$ which pwd
/bin/pwd

84104

@WesleyDavid It doesn't. It doesn't know about builtins.

Joel

@Adrian You get used to it. Basically if there is a functionality, Microsoft has a product that does that thing.

WesleyDavid

@84104 Ohhh, gotcha. I see what you meant.

sam

[sr@ns309372 ~]$ type pwd
pwd is a shell builtin
[sr@ns309372 ~]$ which pwd
/bin/pwd

Weird

WesleyDavid

Ahhh, type is what I'm looking for.

sam

23:49

Mind you

[sr@ns309372 ~]$ /bin/pwd
/home/sr

And it exists
[sr@ns309372 ~]$ ls -lah /bin/pwd
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 28K Dec 7 21:51 /bin/pwd

WesleyDavid

$ type pwd
pwd is a shell builtin

Centos 5.7, BTW

84104

@sam You win!

sam

So it's a shell builtin AND a binary? confused.gif

WesleyDavid

@sam Yeah, that overlap for some commands will nail you. However, I suppose my consternation isn't because of the builtin/binary nature of nice after all.

84104

@sam Yes, but the builtin takes precedence unless you explicitly use the binary.

WesleyDavid

23:51

Someone told me that nice is a built in for some shells and on that I suspected a script wasn't running like I thought it should.

wfaulk

@sam run "which which" and "type which"

WesleyDavid

If nice is a built in on some shells, it's not on my version ofnice.

84104

@WesleyDavid $ equery l bash; type nice
* Searching for bash ...
[IP-] [ ] app-shells/bash-4.2_p20:0
nice is /usr/bin/nice

sam

[sr@ns309372 ~]$ which which
alias which='alias | /usr/bin/which --tty-only --read-alias --show-dot --show-tilde'
/usr/bin/which
[sr@ns309372 ~]$ type which
which is aliased to `alias | /usr/bin/which --tty-only --read-alias --show-dot --show-tilde'

wfaulk

well, there you go

wackiness

Adrian

23:54

Isn't Linux FUN!

84104

Just looked up at my browser tabs. "nice MAN Page"

ewwhite

time versus /usr/bin/time...

Adrian

later gents. Time to go commute home through a downpour.

Journeyman Geek

@84104: pity if something was to happen to it? ;p

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