The Comms Room - 2012-06-08 (page 2 of 3)

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4:09 PM

sigh One of the supervisors filed a ticket asking for new batteries for their flashlight.

Closed to Invalid: Go get them yourself from the Admin Receptionist.

downloaded it a few days ago, had to try several times @BartSilverstrim seems okay this side

builder drops 6 cat5e pairs in the server room from the call center floor. all of them blue (we normally use blue for data and white for phone). 2 of them arent long enough to reach the patch panel rack and i'm all out of 110 blocks for the phone side. wtf friday.

if you need to get the job done properly @Mario, you got to do it yourself

4:26 PM

@ColdT Or hire Columbian Mafia to provide incentives to the contractor concerning getting the job done right.

@WesleyDavid thats an idea, might use that next time!

poland vs greece, pretty aggressive match

I can't wait for the football to be over

Sheesh. Same supervisor filed a bug asking for training on how to use their fax machine....

@Iain whole office practically draining every ounce of the 100mb line we have!

@Adrian i could have sworn as a supervisor, you are already meant to know these things, to teach your juniors!

@ColdT Well, the clinicians tend not to know which side of the keyboard to bang on, and they make the hiring decisions for their peers. So I'm not surprised.

facepalm Something in Broadstripe's network mgmt suite is resetting our staff cable internet connection down to 4Mbit/s every night. I've spent 2 hours on the phone each morning this week getting it reset back to 15.

4:51 PM

@ewwhite very possibly but more important why is he trying to do that at all

@Mario vMotion isn't a product it's a feature

you're not no

Ah ok, thanks Chopper - deleted

5:02 PM

@Adrian Fax machine? Field + baseball bat.

@JeffFerland Agreed. Well, there's nothing at all wrong with the brand new fax machine. I'm pretty sure their software between their ears is defective though.

@Adrian Digital gigabit link to the Internet? How about you send me that image by whistling at 9600 baud.

@JeffFerland Yep. Apparently this guy hadn't even looked for a power cord. They just thought they turned themselves on when you plugged it in.

Some days I weep for humanity.

Ehh, I remember enough phones that powered off the telco line and had lights and such... I can forgive that

But why the hell are there new fax machines?!

NEW DEAD TECHNOLOGY!!!!

@JeffFerland Because it's the most advanced technology that mental health professionals can figure out? I still get requests from nurses, doctors, and managers to have a personal fax machine in each office.

5:16 PM

@JeffFerland POTS circuit (noun): A convenient source of 48V DC power.

@voretaq7 Exactly!

@Adrian have you considered installing an email-to-fax gateway and watching them have screaming orgasms over the convenience?

@voretaq7 But you see, that would involve using a computer. They don't WANT to use the computer. The fax machines allow them to avoid that particular unpleasant reality.

Bart Silverstrim

48 volts? That much? What amperage can I pull before the phone company gets pissed?

@BartSilverstrim Not a hell of a watt

3

5:20 PM

@BartSilverstrim It's not clean 48V -- The ring is actually 100Hz AC superimposed on the baseline voltage.

and re: current draw, <= REN 5.0

(REN 1 is around a 7KΩ resistor shorted across the line - so your current draw is pretty limited)

Bart Silverstrim

...lots of step up transformers?

REN == Ringer Equivalency Number

Ringer equivalence number

In telecommunication, a ringer equivalence number (REN) is a somewhat arbitrary number which denotes the electrical load a telephone ringer has on the line. In the U.S., this is determined in accordance with ANSI/TIA-968-B (August 2009). REN is a United States-developed yardstick, but analogous systems exist internationally. In some countries, (particularly in Commonwealth nations), the REN is better known as the ringer approximated loading number (RAL). Explanation A ringer equivalency number of 1 represents the loading effect of a single "traditional" telephone ringing circuit, such...

I haven't even thought about that term in five years.

@BartSilverstrim you can get a lot of mileage out of 0.06W:-)

light your whole damn house with LEDs you could!

Bart Silverstrim

Like for what? Make your tongue go wheeeeeeeeee?

... and then your cat can see better at night to ambush you

Bart Silverstrim

5:28 PM

@voretaq7 Hmm...Xmas tree hooked into a phone line. When people call, it bursts in a brighter light with each ring.

@BartSilverstrim LEDs man!

@BartSilverstrim see! :-)

::bursts into song::

Oh Christmas Tree - Oh Christmas Tree
Why won't they all stop calling me?

How is it the tag [postgres] has 24 followers and a filled out wiki, yet has only just been created and is tied to a single question?

@growse whut?

serverfault.com/questions/tagged/postgres

Oh, it should be [postgresql] I guess.

Fixed (forever)

5:34 PM

\o/

TGIF

@ITHedgeHog That Girl Is Fine?

@ewwhite You ever find a good way to convert KVM VMs straight across to VMWare?

5:55 PM

I will never remember to exclude my backup folder when backing up.

baception ?

Yo dawg, I heard you like tars, so we tar'd a folder of tars because you're an idiot so go sit down and let the big boys do their work.

3

/me goes and sits down

Bart Silverstrim

You re-tar'ded them? Must be fun to watch.

@BartSilverstrim You sound like a Boston cabby.

Bart Silverstrim

@WesleyDavid I thought you lived in NotAmerica? You have a Boston too?!

6:00 PM

@BartSilverstrim this one lincsuk.com/resources2boston.htm ?

@BartSilverstrim No, he's lives in Arizona. Which is kinda Extra-America.

That's awesome. I just got away with asking the CFO is his problem is an emergency or not. When he said 'No', he went away on his own.

@BartSilverstrim I'm a NorthWesterner that screwed up and lived east of the rockies for five years before escaping (barely with my life) and now live in Phoenix AZ with all the citrus trees, hummingbirds, peach faced lovebirds, horse farms just down the road and oh yes NO SNOW.

@Adrian Yeah, he's talking to HR right now. You're fired.

@WesleyDavid Pfft. The HR manager's out and the HR ladies would laugh at him.

Bart Silverstrim

@WesleyDavid ...are you sure this "arizona" is part of America? Sounds...foreign to me.

@BartSilverstrim Well, there's republicans, guns, gang-related home invasion mass murders, and Starbucks on every corner. Does that help?

I have never heard of "Areca" brand RAID hardware. Until a client's server refused to boot up last night.

I guess I should thank them for billable time, but I am not impressed with what I've seen of them so far.

"Areca designs their own custom ASIC, a high-speed IDE controller, and RAID 6 engine on their controller to achieve high data throughput and availability."

Interesting. Not many RAID controller manufacturers can say that these days.

"Areca. Customized failure for all your downtime needs."

Bart Silverstrim

6:21 PM

@WesleyDavid Bart likes snow as long as Bart doesn't need to drive in it.

@BartSilverstrim I like snow as long as it stays in the mountains north of me where I can go to it, but it cannot come to me.

I hate snow.

no qualifiers. Snow sucks.

@voretaq7 Starred for troof.

Bart Silverstrim

I think snow is pretty when viewed while indoors with a stocked fridge.

+1

Bart Silverstrim

6:28 PM

As for driving in it, nope nope nope.

Driving is the number one cause of automobile accidents and airbag injuries. These I do not like.

@voretaq7 without snow, there would be no skiing.

@BartSilverstrim I live in New York. Snow is this gray/black dirty thing next to the street that the beese drive through. It's narsty.

Bart Silverstrim

Do people hide in the snowbanks to mug you?

@growse I don't ski.

@BartSilverstrim Nobody would willingly get in that pile of nasty.

If it weren't for the clouds delivering hail and rain, I could see the remaining snow on the mountains, which is just where it should be.

Bart Silverstrim

6:34 PM

@growse You can ski on wet grass.

@voretaq7 you're missing out

@BartSilverstrim you can ski on dry brown grass too

Bart Silverstrim

NEW YORKERS WHY DO YOU HAVE CARS IN THE CITY?

Snow is cold and wet and makes cars slide and crash. These I do not like.

@BartSilverstrim there are many things you can do

Bart Silverstrim

Snow is not even recommended for storing food during power outages.

6:35 PM

@BartSilverstrim unseasonal snowstorms in rural PA ?

Cars are acceptable in queens, brooklyn and most of the bronx.
Staten Island doesn't count.

Bart Silverstrim

@Iain Not this year.

phew

@BartSilverstrim Hell with that. Awesome beer cooler.

6:51 PM

ust to drink beer, then i gained 20lb. no i drink strait rum.

or its the bacon i've been eating. but i'm pretty sure its the beer.

I used to drink straight rum, then I took an arrow to the knee after stumbling onto an archery field and threatening the competitors with projectile vomit.

xip.io

wildcard dns - looks cool

@Mario beer-battered bacon?

cook the bacon - cook some hash browns with peppers and onions in it. wait till both are done - beat 3 eggs into some milk - pour into frying pan - scramble like normal but while liquidy, put 1/4 of the hash browns into it and crumble 3 strips of bacon into it. put between 2 slices of buttered toasted white bread.

@Mario that sounds awful

7:01 PM

sooooo good.

. . . shitefood.co.uk/2012/01/mr-brains-pork-faggots

WUT?

@voretaq7 just what it says on the URL

@Iain you people eat that?

@voretaq7 I guess someone does

Interesting developments in the CFEngine world. Consolidation of enterprise products and a design center: cmdln.org/2012/06/04/cfengine-design-center-launches

7:08 PM

we bought a deep fryer this week - gonna try to make donuts this week - found a ripoff of krispy kreme donuts recipe

Cfengine is over

Just got out of 3.5 hour interview

@ewwhite whiteboardy ?

@Adrian I converted KVM VMs using VMWare converter.

@Iain No, THEY drew on whiteboard :)

Some interesting questions that I hadn't had before.

"imagine you have a server... Let's say through a company acquisition... What would you do in order to determine what it does? Walk us through the steps..."

@ewwhite You fiend!

@ewwhite read the documentation ;)

7:13 PM

@ewwhite First, Cheeze Whiz. Second, a canister of helium. Third... do you have any cats?

Seriously though:
Windows: appwiz.cpl, sc.exe, nmap that sucker from the outside
*nix: dump package manager contents, ps aux, nmap that sucker from the outside

@ewwhite is it nexentastor you use for storage stuff ?

Oh, and as @Iain said, something about documentation.

But that was an example. Other questions were interesting...let's say you have an app that's dumping data to do disk, but pauses frequently... What do you do?

@Iain Yep. nexentastor

@ewwhite What OS and is the storage DAS, NAS or SAN?

(I know, I know - it's not my interview, but you've intrigued me. =) )

@WesleyDavid Assume DAS

7:16 PM

@ewwhite ta - going to take a peek rsn

@Iain It's decent..,

@ewwhite and is this unexpected behavior? E.g., there are certainly apps that dump a bunch of data, compute more, dump a bunch of data, etc.

@ewwhite I'd start with iotop and see which processes were writing, and then pausing. From there, it's totally up to which processes are involved. Plus, if the filesystem is ZFS, it's supposed to do that. There's a "breathing" action to writes that's normal.

Windows: Use performance graphing to track the process. PRetty simple in 2008+. Then, based on the process, you can move forward.

@WesleyDavid You forgot logs, chkconfig, netstat, dmesg, ifconfig and blueprint ;)

If it's not a process, then it could be the hardware itself, so check any internal logging and performance logging that it comes with.

7:19 PM

@ewwhite and cron, /etc/init.d (or upstart, or whatever the distro uses), ...

The disk answer was Vm.dirty_ratio.

@ewwhite I left those for you. =P

After I talked about write cache...

@WesleyDavid Post a question on SF and follow the advice you get...

@Ward You mean before or after it gets nine downvotes and closed as not constructive?

7:21 PM

@WesleyDavid that wouldn't happen you know how to write a question

@WesleyDavid I'm sure that would never happen.

If so, post here and speculate that it's somehow caused by markdown.

I don't ask on SF anymore. I ask over on U&L nowadays. =)

I got my share of downvotes on...

1

A: What are some options for acquiring a free realtime Linux distribution?

I'd say CentOS or Scientific Linux with a realtime kernel compiled from Red Hat MRG source RPMs or using the CERN pre-built binaries. See: Compiling realtime kernel from RHEL 6 MRG sources on CentOS 6 and CentOS 5 - realtime patch The caveat is that simply installing a realtime distro won't a...

Evil traitor kitteh!

@ewwhite You got one downvote, got upvotes from me and someone else. I've gotta finish reading some of the stuff you linked to, even though I don't need real time, I like it.

any other bacula people on here besides me?

2

Q: Bacula & Multiple Tape Devices, and so on

Bacula won't make use of 2 tape devices simultaneously. (Search for #-#-# for the TL;DR) A little background, perhaps. In the process of trying to get a decent working backup solution (backing up >20TB ain't cheap, or easy) at $dayjob, we bought a bunch of things to make it work. Firstly, ther...

backup tape bacula commvault spectralogic

7:24 PM

@ewwhite there is only -1 on your answer, there isn't even a badge for that

@voretaq7 Wow. Words. And kitteh!

I don't have an autochanger (we do everything to disk, and i want my backups to be sequential to files), but I'd be interested in knowing if this is a known bacula deficiency...

we use symantec backup :(

trying to move away from it.

@Mario I'm sorry.

@voretaq7 can you look at the new flag on the question I recently closed please

7:31 PM

2012-06-08T19:16:08.235Z cpu1:2049)WARNING: ScsiDeviceIO: 1218: Device naa.600601601fd02d0046b558e32553e111 performance has deteriorated. I/O latency increased from average value of 4622 microseconds to 106873 microseconds.

jesus :(

and we use AppAssure Replay - backup's stand alone servers to a VM on ESXi so incase of catastrophic hardware failure, the VM can be turned on and take its place. that, is actually pretty cool and we like it. But they were recently bought out by Dell :(

@Iain I was -4 on that until I edited.

I thought.

@voretaq7 I need to learn bacula

@Iain I would have squashed it too - I'll leave a comment though

Just got a call on my business line from Seattle. They hung up when I answered. @Adrian, didn't your parents teach you not to do that! =(

@WesleyDavid It's called "Ring and Run" :-)

7:36 PM

One more interview question... Imagine you work at a online music startup and your predecessor cataloged music using the title of the audio files... So you end up with a poorly scaling mess of files with typos.

@ewwhite Kill your predecessor.

Let's say the solution was to hard link... And use a better index/shard whatever...

use itunes

this does not solve the problem - but it makes you feel better.

@Mario You're fired.

7:37 PM

But in the process, you end up with orphan files...

@ewwhite how?

And you are maintaining both naming conventions..

@ewwhite Files, this crap is straight on the filesystem? The metadata for music files is on the effing filesystem? Okay, first you go all @Chopper3 and bleed out the CTO's family in front of him for allowing this.

For developer's sake...

@ewwhite Then you give the developer's a hot oil bath and tell them to deal with the new naming convention.

Next you hang a politician just because.

Then... something about flamethrowers.

7:39 PM

@voretaq7 Misspelled names, etc. as things are indexed, there are orphaned audio files on the filesystem.

Okay, but seriously, that concoction is so messed up, I'd need to take over the whiteboard for a little bit.

Step 1: Hard-Link all the files to their primary key name (presumably an integer)
Step 2: Tell the developers to fucking man up and use the primary key integer id as the filesystem name or you'll shove their testicles into their eye sockets.
Step 3: Shove developer's testicles into their eye sockets. Because they deserve it.
Step 2:

So the question was how to find orphaned files and remove them...

Or calculate their size and move them

@voretaq7 #2 is essential. There's no reason to maintain two namespaces like that. That's just dain bramaged.

yeah, but name as a file name isn't nessecarily bad. we've had 2 digital voice recorders in this office. the first one named the file name with date, employee name, time, channel on pbx, etc... but the server sucked. was hard to find anything. but, if the server failed, it was easy to visually identify a file. the new one had an index for the file name and the meta was stored in mysql. one day the DB failed and you couldn't tell 1 file from another. but the software was better.

7:41 PM

This was straight out of the interviewer's past company. She had to deal with this.

@ewwhite hmmmm

@ewwhite What filesystem?

for f in filesystem
   if f not in DB list => F is an orphan

your DB list would have to include all active namespaces obviously

I told her to find files with a link count of less than 2... Maybe -exec du or pipe to ask to sum.

I sensed that was the direction she was going... It was what she did...

But I couldnt remember the right link number... So it was a guess

I sensed some odd operational challenges. Something like 1500 servers...

99% VMware VMs. 95% CentOS 3,4,5 and trying to get to 6.

@voretaq7 thanks

8:09 PM

@ewwhite So how'd you feel about today's interview?

Oh and hey @justFen. Nice to have you here. =)

@justFen The SysAd network is kinda slow, and will probably always be, but it's a nice resources to have around if you need to ask a question.

@WesleyDavid I think I did fine.

`ERROR: smartctl takes ONE device name as the final command-line argument.
You have provided 128 device names:`
^ TeeHee!

@ewwhite Yeah, but did you like them?

@WesleyDavid I answered all of the questions... Asked the right questions... Got a better understanding of the business.

0

Q: Suppress log messages about 3ware disk temperature changes on CentOS?

I have a number of CentOS 5 servers which use 3ware RAID controllers. These servers are bugging my team with messages about minor temperature changes, like this: Jun 8 12:32:39 HOST smartd[1231]: Device: /dev/twa0 [3ware_disk_01], SMART Usage Attribute: 194 Temperature_Celsius changed from 119...

logging logwatch 3ware

^^ !!! ^^
I thought he knew better!

@ewwhite that works too but there's a lot more room for fuzz...

e.g. if your new files only get added with the new naming scheme they'll have a link count of 1 -- hairy.

@WesleyDavid The business is a weird model... and they've grown a little too quickly. Glassdoor.com wasn't super kind.

But the people were nice and it was a good conversation.

8:19 PM

Okay, I have a client who's dedicated server at 1and1 suffered a HD failure. RAID 1 was in place, so I'm making sure things are backed up before having a second drive placed in and rebuilding the array.

Then I saw this little bit of loveliness on the remaining good drive:

smartctl -A /dev/sda

Current Drive Temperature: 30 C
Drive Trip Temperature: 25 C
Manufactured in week 30 of year 2002

@voretaq7 Oh, totally... I was guessing.

I'm just glad its friday :-(

Manufactured in week 30 of year 2002

Manufactured in week 30 of year 2002

I am disappoint.

that's... that's....

@WesleyDavid that's fine.

8:20 PM

you know what, no snark I could possible snark would beat just leaving that by itself

Hard drives are Run Until Fail components.

@voretaq7 I treat hard drives as replace before fail components. =/

Five year rotation if possible.

Usually in five years, the storage system, whatever it is, is obsolete or otherwise ill fitting and needs an overhaul anyway.

@WesleyDavid But the other issue was that it seems like there were 10 departments handling IT... Team A installs the OS. Team B copies the OS. Team C owns the servers... Team D manages production.

@ewwhite You know what they need? DEVOPS!!!

@WesleyDavid why?

8:21 PM

fuck devops

4

they can't even get puppet installed.

why ?

and a cloud. Everyone needs a cloud

I may have missed a zero... maybe 15,000 servers.

something awful like that.

@DJPon3 we have too many atm

8:22 PM

@Iain dropped the F-bomb. Everyone look for sasquatch riding an albino unicorn now!

2

yeah

no puppet because I think Spacewalk is in the way.

@WesleyDavid If you went by the Google stats (static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrusted_dlcp/…) you'd be recycling them every 3 years...

It's just a big environment and everyone was strapped for time. It was hard to even get people in one place for the meeting

<troll your helpdesk staff> go to English dept. staffroom... transpose the M and N keys on all the staff's keyboards because... fuck them. </troll your helpdesk staff>

8:24 PM

Just a quirk of mine based on completely subjective experiences concerning drive failure. (That research paper you linked to would probably give me more cogent thought on the matter though!) I don't like drive failures as unplanned rebuilds have disappointed me in many ways. So I like to cycle drives if it's practical.

For lots of DAS, it's not practical and keeping track of hardware like that is nigh of impossible. NAS / SAN storage is easier to live that out with.

@WesleyDavid chat.stackexchange.com/search?q=fuck&user=1533&room=127 chat.stackexchange.com/search?q=fuck&user=2779&room=127

I like to have array rebuilds as part of planned maintenance rather than on an as needed basis, because "as needed" means "when bad stuff happens" and that's just uncomfortable no matter how well your array handles failed drives.

Okay Seattle, stop calling me and not responding to my hellos.

Just heavy breathing on the other end of the line?

@WesleyDavid I prefer good backups -- unplanned rebuilds have given me unpleasant surprises too, but it seems that my chance of a failure during a rebuild is roughly equal at any point after the 2-3 year mark, and the marginal costs of cycling disks are too high compared to a failure of a redundant system for 24 hours...

@WesleyDavid no caller id to call back ?

8:27 PM

It's steve ballmer trying to get the courage up to ask you to fix windows 8

@Iain chat.stackexchange.com/search?q=fuck&user=2779&room=127 <-- I'm a bad person. =(

@WesleyDavid there are worse

Oh yeah... last interview question... "Tell me how traceroute works".

@Iain like me.

@WesleyDavid Wasn't me calling you. Honest.

8:29 PM

@ewwhite @Iain I've been getting calls from the NW a lot in the last two months. Portland, Seattle, Vancouver WA. My number must be close to some business number I guess. I answer in my typical business fashion and ask "how can I help you?" and they immediately hang up.

hmm, only two fucking pages for me

i am dissapoint

<Cartman>What? We're just saying fuck - it's not like we're hurting anyone. Fuck! Fuck! Fuckity-Fuck-Fuck-Fuck!</Cartman>

South Park - obviously NSFW

there are more here chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/2699371#2699371 that most people have

only one page for me. Now I AM shocked

@Zypher did you ever gat a bike ?

8:31 PM

Dec 13 '11 at 15:45, by Chris S

@MarkM I've given up on chat. Except for the things that are egregiously offensive.

@DJPon3 is that good or bad ?

@Iain bike, wha?

@ewwhite Interesting. All my KVM VMs barf in Converter. Going to try a manual disk image conversion from raw to vmdk6 this afternoon.

It's less than I expected. Lets leave it at that

chat.stackexchange.com/search?q=fuck&user=5477&room=127 434

8:32 PM

@voretaq7 Yes, good backups are boffo. I just hate, hate, hate needing to use them for anything other than tests. The arrays I deal with aren't terribly expensive, so that probably factors in too. If I was on NetApp or EMC stuff, I'd leave well enough alone since 1) Warranty, 2) That stuff is solid RAID 01111561 anyway.

@Zypher I seem to recall a conversation some time ago about you buying a bike

@Iain And yeah, I could, but I don't want to take it to that level yet. =)

@Iain hmm, mighta been talkinga bout getting my bike up to nyc

it makes me sad it's still sitting in my mom's garage

:(

yea

8:34 PM

the weather here has been poor I've done <1000 miles so far this year

At the risk of being overly serious and being laughed at, I've been feeling depressed lately. Anyone got any ideas for busting out of that?

@Zypher Should buy a Whizzer. 138cc engine in a bicycle frame.

@DJPon3 . . . .

www.stevecash83.com

talking kitty

sorry @voretaq7

It's like a @WesleyDavid, only black and foul-mouthed.

8:36 PM

...

@DJPon3 got off the computer and go for a hike or a bike ride

@DJPon3 judo

that helps for a while, zypher, thanks for the reminder, I should get back to that

I wish I could Iain. I really wish I could but my back is too fucked (hey, increased the f-count!)

@DJPon3 target shooting

ooh yes what @voretaq7 said

8:37 PM

@DJPon3 dispose of your disposable income by learning to fly ('s what I'm doing)

that could work...

shooting (non living, inanimate) shit is always a help

you're learning to fly? cool

@DJPon3 @Zypher best to stick to small-caliber bullets if your back is fucked though.

haha, 308 all the way

8:38 PM

@Zypher do users count? I mean they're alive, but they're slightly dumber than jellyfish so it's kinda like missing the can and hitting a tree right?

true that

@DJPon3 finishing up my training and getting ready for the checkride finally

@voretaq7 Well, there's hardly any sport in shooting something that'd shoot itself if you let it play with the rifle

@voretaq7 yes, users a fine - to me at least. The Legal system might have a different view though

that is pretty cool @voretaq, the check ride is like the test to get the licence right?

8:40 PM

imdb.com/title/tt0111323

@Zypher do we count as users ?

hmm interesting

i'll give you guys a pass ... mostly cus you'd shoot back

interesting film idea there

@DJPon3 yup

hope it goes well then mate :-)

8:42 PM

@Zypher I can sway the judge. "Your honor, if you accept my argument that users are not people and therefore shooting them is not murder you can extend it logically to frivolous litigants who don't understand that the judiciary is not just a big room for them to stand in and whine..."

lol

(the next BANG you hear will be a purse gun hidden under the robes)

9:05 PM

Nice. The QEMU-IMG converter in Centos6 worked like a charm. Converted my raw disk images to VMDK and VMWare fired them right up when I hooked a new VM up to them.

It's kinda strange when stuff in Linux just works without any fiddling first.

gotta love it when a plan comes together

@DJPon3 Around here? It's a fscking miracle!

aye. take the wins wherever you can find them, huh

These people take the Seattle Consensus-based Committee culture way too seriously.

9:25 PM

Meanwhile, on U&L:

1

Q: How do I correlate /dev/sd devices to the hardware they represent?

A drive is beginning to fail and I only know the device by its /dev/sdb device file designation. What are the ways that I can use to correlate that device file to an actual hardware device to know which drive to physically replace? Bonus: What if I don't have /dev/disk/ and its sub directories o...

9:39 PM

@WesleyDavid some of those answers are sane, thankfully

@derobert "Pull drives out into something crashes."

Wee! Finally broke 10MBps on this backup transfer. Teh interpipes were clogged earlier.

@WesleyDavid tubesdance.ytmnd.com

@voretaq7 oooomTSHH oooomTSHH oooomTSHH TOOBS oooomTSHH oooomTSHH oooomTSHH TOOBS

Thanks, now that'll be stuck in my head for the rest of the day. >_<

Sen. Stevens missed his calling.

@WesleyDavid OH YOU'RE WELCOME ;>

@ewwhite Yes, RAID controller, but I wanted a generic question about the general topic to get generic answers.

9:49 PM

@WesleyDavid SO tempted to reply with 'hire a pro' :)

2

@Chopper3 DOOO EEEEETTT!!!

I'd upvote it. =)

No, I like you so I'm being nice

@WesleyDavid I don't think there's a generic approach. If using a controller and hot-swap disks, the controller should give you the port number.

@ewwhite Hrm, sysctl and /sys/block seem to be fairly generic.

I'm thinking HP and Dell. The physical drives are abstracted... you'll only see the logical block device presented by the RAID controller.

9:52 PM

'smartctl' rather

@ewwhite Ahh, okay. Point taken.

FYI: Fakeraid licks roadkill and likes it.

But if you were just talking about raw SCSI disks, then you're talking about a software RAID scenario? If so, then the smartctl, /proc/scsi/scsi and hmm...

Not sure. My last-bad boss did software RAID everywhere and I ended up having to look for a failed disk... I'm trying to recall what I did.

I think Ethabelle went to look at the server for lack of LED activity.

Actually, softraid is fine, mdadm and etc. isn't bad.

But when it's bootstrapped with some awful Intel Storage "chipset" so that you can fakeraid the system partition, that makes me angry.

Soft raiding non-OS drives is actually pretty resilient in many scenarios.

@WesleyDavid well, you can software raid the system partition with mdraid

@derobert You can do that nowadays, eh? Last time I dealt with mdraid that didn't work.

@derobert Completely without any special hardware help? No Matrox Storage, Intel-debauchery?

9:56 PM

Yes

@derobert Well slap my face and call me Tina.

You've been able to do that for quite a while, actually

The only "specialness" about it is that you install the bootloader on each drive, so that if one fails, the BIOS tries to boot the next drive

EEnteresting.

so you need a small part of the drive (e.g., /boot) on raid1

@derobert Entirely possible. It's been QUITE awhile since I bothered with software raid.

9:58 PM

The rest can be whatever RAID level you'd like (as that'll only be needed after the kernel is up)

Hmm. I think it might have even been the original Compaq DL360.

9.2GB SCSI drives.

Not sure at what point RedHat added support for this in their distro. Its been in Debian for ages.

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