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14:00
@wfaulk Someone likes to use every utility they know...
or at least the possibility of filename collision
time to ask again:
it's a nice interview problem though
anyone know an SA looking for a job in the RTP area?
The Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP) defines a standardized packet format for delivering audio and video over IP networks. RTP is used extensively in communication and entertainment systems that involve streaming media, such as telephony, video teleconference applications, television services and web-based push-to-talk features. RTP is used in conjunction with the RTP Control Protocol (RTCP). While RTP carries the media streams (e.g., audio and video), RTCP is used to monitor transmission statistics and quality of service (QoS) and aids synchronization of multiple streams. RTP is origina...
?
also, this guy claimed during a phone screen that he would display "moderate to expert Linux knowledge" in an interview
unrelatedly:
.@KI4OTK has agreed to speak at the 10/17 meetup on Illumos. It’s 7pm @WebAssign. Learn how this Linux distro might help you.
14:04
I didn't know Illumos was a Linux distro...
@wfaulk Eh, I freely admit I am not a wizard when it comes to scripting strange stuff like that. I generally don't spend the time to write a script for one-off stuff, until the second time I have to do it.
@KennyRasschaert exactly
@MichaelHampton I wasn't pointing fingers at you at all. but now I'm curious how you would deal with such a problem if not via a "script"
@wfaulk Oh, yes, I'd write a script for it soon enough. But I'd have to read a few man pages and spend lots of time testing it first.
yeah, I wasn't looking for an absolutely correct answer. But the stuff he provided was ... substandard thought process
My partial solution is above :)
14:08
I actually like your answer, other than it doesn't take filename collision into account
Oh, I changed it to mv -i. Which is at least a start :)
there are other potential problems with argument length, but it's certainly in the right direction
yeah, I saw that. the other part of the problem I didn't state here is that there were thousands of files.
@wfaulk Hm, in that case I'd copy the whole directory tree, and then delete files in the copied tree that don't match the criteria.
which makes '-i' problematic
Mi
@MichaelHampton ditto
14:11
That comes out something like...
@wfaulk was the request to put the files all in one directory or in a tree under that directory ?
Also an interesting solution
cp -r src dest; rm `grep -lvR string dest`
@Iain the request was to get them out of that directory while retaining the data
@MichaelHampton I like it!
yes, but it matters where you want them put
14:13
@Iain what I meant is that I didn't care
I think bash is limited to something like 30,000 arguments though, so if it's more files than that, then a bigger sledgehammer is required.
whereever
the shell being used would almost certainly not have been bash, but, regardless, I'm picking nits about that sort of thing
Isn't the point of those interview questions to determine how the candidate approaches problems, rather than that they get an exactly correct solution to a hypothetical question?
Hello everyone!
@MichaelHampton You could wrap your snip in a find, eg find / -exec mv -i `grep -lR string {} +` /tmp
14:15
@MichaelHampton absolutely
You might be able to pass -type d to find, then grep through all the files in the directory, bonus that {} now contains a directory name for recreating the directory structure; though you'll have to use mkdir unless we replace mv with something like tar (which I've done before because sometimes it's just plain easier to preserver directory structures that way)
building on your reverse solution: tar cf - `grep -lvR $string src` | ( cd dest; tar xf - )
@wfaulk (cd dest; tar xf -) == tar -C dest xf -
yeah, old habits
@MikeyB I always cringe at that one too.
14:21
I want to say that when I learned that trick, '-C' didn't exist, but I probably just didn't read the man page
@wfaulk I always thought it was a GNU-ism.
@wfaulk Why would you? You have something that works Just Fine :p
Bash is limited by environment size, not a specific limit. At least as far as I've seen.
Well, xargs should take care of working around the shell's limits, so...
oh are we playing bash golf?
14:23
cp -r src dest && grep -lvR string dest | xargs rm
@MichaelHampton That's not a bash limit per se, it's an exec() limit. I think.
Off to the man pages!
@MichaelHampton All you people are going to be mightily disappointed when people hand you directory structures full of spaces with files.
@wfaulk Still going to hit that argument limit pretty easily... Probably best to use tar's -T option, built the list of files to be moved with find / -exec grep string {} + > /tmp/filelist.txt then tar cfT - /tmp/filelist.txt | tar xfC - /dest/path
And if you really hate the idea of chewing up your /tmp directory... mkfifo /tmp/filelist.txt then run the first command in the background...
@MikeyB Actually, I have such a directory full of files with spaces in the filenames. It's nice to test things with.
14:26
i like find piped to xargs a lot more than find -exec
@KennyRasschaert *nix golf, yeah...
speaking of xargs, i recently learned you can (ab)use it to run ssh in parallel
I guess you'll need xargs -0 (which I think is a GNU thing) to handle files with spaces.
similar to mcollective, func, ...
@KennyRasschaert -exec {} + is better still
14:27
I wrote this little script around xargs with ssh: gist.github.com/3780799
Or {}, but {} scares me.
@MichaelHampton I think that's POSIX.2 spec...
would tampering with the IFS solve the spaces problem?
And, I don't like forking a process 30,000 times if it can simply be done once or twice.
OLDIFS=$IFS;IFS="
"
14:29
getconf ARG_MAX
Dan
Dan
*Steps into room*
*Looks around*
*Room is talking in foreign language*

*sigh*
@MichaelHampton -exec ... {} + avoids that (to some extent)
@Dan You don't *nix?
Off to the man pages, again!
@ChrisS all the cool kids are doing it!
14:30
and, apparently, getconf is a POSIX thing
Dan
Dan
@ChrisS No, not really, though I've said a few times I need to learn
@MichaelHampton the {} + will add as many parameters as it can to the command line
which is normally more than one
@Iain Good to know.
@Dan No worries, not everyone can be perfect.
@Iain I did not know that. good tip
14:32
-exec command {} +
This variant of the -exec action runs the specified command on the selected files, but the
command line is built by appending each selected file name at the end; the total number of
invocations of the command will be much less than the number of matched files. The command
line is built in much the same way that xargs builds its command lines. Only one instance of
‘{}’ is allowed within the command. The command is executed in the starting directory.
Dan
Dan
@ChrisS I do what I do!
does -exec {} + run in parallel?
I don't believe so. The {} part just gets a slew of results from find instead of just one.
There are too many options to most utilities to know them all it's like find print0 ... | xargs -0 rm {} when you can just do find ... -delete
that's a win for xargs then
14:34
@KennyRasschaert you'd need to test that
@Iain OK, where's the find option that searches for a string within a text file? :)
@KennyRasschaert Eh, I'm not sure I'd want my server trying to spawn 30000 instances of mv, or tar, or whatever.
@MichaelHampton alias find ...
Hah... I shall spam ya'll as well!
I'm competing in a weightlifiting competition, proceeds go to breast cancer procedures for low-income families, if anyone can contribute, hit the link: support.barbellsforboobs.org/individual-fundraising/tommyboy
@ChrisS xargs let's you choose the degree of how parallel it runs
with -P and -n
14:38
I'm still not convinced running mv in parallel is a good idea, but you have a point.
storage doesn't like parallel stuff, but modern cpu architectures sure do
@KennyRasschaert Storage is OK w/ parallel. Now parallel on the same LUN? Different story :)
That's it, I'm rep capped for the day. See you all later.
I'm still trying to figure out why questions about Tor get so many upvotes on SF...
28
Q: I am going to chop the FreeBSD automounter into little pieces and boil them in oil

larsksI am trying to expose a hierarchy of home directories to a number of FreeBSD jails. The home directories are configured such that each is a unique ZFS dataset. The jails are used for development work and hence are created and destroyed on a regular basis. My first thought was simply to use nul...

Just looking through my favorites and came across this gem again
not terribly scientific, but it's the best i could come up with
14:48
can anyone come up with a single word that describes the replacement of variables with their values? Kind of the opposite of parameterization.
@wfaulk Substitution?
@MDMarra I'm going to have to remember that, next time I ask a question.
in the world of unix shells, the term expansion is usually used i think
Just because a word has been co-opted by the uninformed makes it no more correct. =P
I'm done for today, cya
14:59
@MDMarra amd: Because you've been a bad, BAD boy!
           ___________    ____
    ______/   \__//   \__/____\
  _/   \_/  :           //____\\
 /|      :  :  ..      /        \
| |     ::     ::      \        /
| |     :|     ||     \ \______/     Don't try to rebuild the
| |     ||     ||      |\  /  |        kernel remotely because
 \|     ||     ||      |   / | \         you know you're just
  |     ||     ||      |  / /_\ \        going to hose the server.
  | ___ || ___ ||      | /  /    \
   \_-_/  \_-_/ | ____ |/__/      \
                _\_--_/    \      /
3
that, however, earns it a spot on my favorites list too
0
Q: RSolr::Error::Http (RSolr::Error::Http - 404 Not Found) heruku

SapnaI'm working on web solar in my rails application,my Application user WEBSolr for searching. My local everything working fine but when I deploy my code to heruko, my application get stopped , and its giving me error of RSolr::Error::Http (RSolr::Error::Http - 404 Not Found) also below are the ...

Kill it dead with fire.
To be fair to the interviewee, all of you are doing it the stupid way too.

You type `*string*` into the search bar in Windows Explorer, go get some coffee, and drag the returned results into the desired folder. No crazy Greek, regex or Linuxy-mumbo-jumbo required. :p
StackOverflow doesn't migrate crap!
15:14
Ermagerd Heruku!
@voretaq7 I call shenanigans!
@HopelessN00b OK, great, now automate that.
I wouldn't be upset, except:
Nick with Websolr here — this issue is index specific, and we've sorted it out via our standard support channels for Websolr. Flagged as "too localized." — user16552 24 hours ago
^^^ THAT COMMENT CAME WITH THE QUESTION
@voretaq7 14 HOURS before it was migrated too
MPLS = $$$$/Mb VPN Tunnel = $$/Mb
6 sites worldwide

Keep the slow/expensive MPLS circuits or replace with 2 ISPs per location and high bandwidth/mid-cost VPN tunnels and lots of routes, etc.
15:18
@Dan, the original didn't have a question either... It was a mandate to tell him how to fix the problem. It just irks me when it's a Q&A site but people can't manage to muster an actual Question.
@TheCleaner How tolerant are you to downtime?
@MichaelHampton - that's where I'm hoping 2 ISPs per site might help. I could handle an hour per site per quarter.
@TheCleaner Managed MPLS IP-VPN usually have a very high SLA compared to regular ISP pipes
Dan
Dan
@ChrisS That's fair enough, I could only be bothered to reword it because seeing HyberV was getting on my nerves
@pauska true, but if you bring in two diverse ISPs over two diverse trunks (from different sides of the building ideally) you'll probably be in the 3-4 nines range
15:21
@voretaq7 sure. Until you (or another employee) destroys the firewall(s) at one site etc.. it all comes down to what you want to spend time on
two routers capable of BGP + two firewalls in a cluster is also some amount of $$..
@voretaq7 Only anecdotally, I've never had two ISPs go down at the same time. knock on wood
at each site, mind you
Dan
Dan
@ChrisS I hear you have to pay extra for that
@ChrisS I've never had two ISPs go down at the same time, but I have had a wild backhoe appear and cut through a fiber trunk that both ISPs were using...
@Dan Everything costs extra. =]
@voretaq7 I tend to use Cable for my backup, which usually comes in at a different point in the building.
Dan
Dan
15:23
@voretaq7 No SLA in the world will save you against rogue machinery!
@pauska True. You can do a chassis switch/router and save some cash (if you have chassis gear around)
@TheCleaner but then again, I can understand why you're considering this.. multi-nation MPLS is ridiculously expensive compared to intra-country MPLS..
anyways, time to go home. later!
@Dan Fiber Optic Cable: A peaceful snakelike creature that lives underground. Usually brightly colored to ward off predators. Unfortunately the major natural predator of Fiber Optic Cable is the backhoe, which is apparently attracted to bright colors...
2
@pauska intra-country MPLS ain't too cheap either :-/
@pauska - wouldn't be routers with BGP (at most sites) just a regular enterprise firewall with 2 separate VPN Tunnels setup (say between siteA and siteB), with one tunnel failing to the second. We figure MRC costs would go from $20k to around $16k but going from an average of 3Mbps/sync to 50Mbps/sync per site
@TheCleaner you don't need multiple-nines at all the remote sites?
15:27
voretaq, no. They are branch office mfg sites.
@TheCleaner then FUCK YEAH VPN!
Depending on how many sites you have that need real multiple-nines reliability you could do multiple ISPs or dark fiber and regular internet backup - all probably cheaper than MPLS
4 hours ago, by DJ Pon3
Besides, I agree with the comment someone made in here ages ago: Tomtom isn't actually real, he's just the living embodiment of all the snark that exists in all sysadmins, no matter how much we try to fight it or deny it
Oh… dude! You've just won the Internet. The snark has become sentient.
@TheCleaner We've had <5 minutes of VPN downtime this year; due to one of our primary ISPs failing and a rather lethargic failover policy on the routers - but nobody noticed anyway. It was nice to see the system work as expected.
Completely unrelated: If Metro is driving you mad, too, this might help.
@MichaelHampton I was going to be smarmy and link Ubuntu as something else that would help. Then I remembered that their new default interface is shite as well.
15:38
@MikeyB You can see why I went back to KDE, then.
@MichaelHampton KDE: Krappy Desktop Environment
@voretaq7 Yes, but it's at least less krappy than the alternatives.
(GNOME has too many letters and I've had 0 coffee - someone make up a disparaging acronym for it! NAO!)
@MichaelHampton Equivalent statement: "Boy I'm sure glad my LEFT testicle got caught in the rusty bear trap. I'd hate to lose the right one!"
@voretaq7 I'd be more than happy to hear any better ideas.
@voretaq7: So does this count as a bug in the FreeBSD loader? If you set comconsole_speed, then console=comconsole, it starts using the serial port at 9600 regardless of comconsole_speed. `show comconsole_speed` shows the value you set, not 9600. (pfSense installer)
Got a serial FreeBSD box to test it on? :)
15:41
@MikeyB I would consider this a bug, yes. Unfortunately I have no headless machines (and no serial console) to test it with :P
@voretaq7 Relevant: i.imgur.com/9INyI.jpg (MNSFW)
However I would also consider a serial port setting of anything other than 9600/8/N/1 to be an abomination :)
@MikeyB (1) Ow, that poor mouse. (2) Does the M stand for "Mice: NSFW"?
@voretaq7 'Maybe', I think.
@MikeyB I think it would be more appropriate to warn the mice. That could traumatize them yanno.
@voretaq7 Relevant: i.imgur.com/9INyI.jpg (NSFM)
15:48
StackOverflow. A maze of twisty features, all unalike.
4
Cheeze...ballz....cheeze....ballz...
@MikeyB Even kitty isn't that cruel.
Isn't more effort involved in getting your balls snapped in a mouse trap than your head? At least in my experience.
6
@MichaelHampton Nothing easier. Hey, helldesk bitch ...
@WesleyDavid Kinky, kinky kitty.
pounces on @WesleyDavid
I could've sworn this interpreted /me
15:55
Too many Monit questions...
0
Q: Does exist a linux service for watching/checking (and restarting, i.e. for a segfault) running daemons?

Andrea RabbagliettiI'm searching for a linux service that watches/checks every n seconds a list of running processes/daemons for detecting (and noticing+restarting the process) any issues (like a segmentation fault in nginx). Is there any?

@ewwhite monit, daemontools, any monitoring system and a shell script
@TomO'Connor It only does if you add a user script... I think @Reb made one.
@voretaq7 I mean, seriously, who tries to rub their balls on cheese put behind the refrigerator? That's like @MDMarra level kink right there.
4
It's always the bearded men...
@TomO'Connor Rawr.
16:10
Can we fuck this one right off then? serverfault.com/q/434104/1435
Found a pair of weird things on google maps goo.gl/maps/SZJpT "Voice of America"?
@Chopper3 Ugh. "Oh! I have a great idea! Why hasn't it already been implemented???"
@WesleyDavid You are full of great truth
@MikeyB we get these all the time
@TomO'Connor US Shortwave Radio
16:14
@Chopper3 Oh I know.
@voretaq7 Huh. cool. Huge antenna arrays.
^^ Those guys
@TomO'Connor Huge propaganda machine :)
I believe we're still operating it with government funds
if you have a shortwave rig I'm pretty sure you can pick up some of their stuff in .UK
neat. I'll have to try.
i love sw radio
not dusted off my SW kit for a number of years
An almost interesting one...
0
Q: How can I measure disk cache churn on Linux?

regularfryI have a file server which serves out large (25GB-1TB+) files over the network from local storage. I'm trying to decide whether adding more RAM for the disk cache would help performance given our access patterns, but I can't see how to measure disk cache churn. Is it possible?

Damn. He accidentally specified the operating system, so I can't be a smart-ass and suggest using the built-in DFS-R reporting tools. :(
16:26
@KennyRasschaert {}+ seems quite quick then
awww you guys closed it :(
I wanted to post my yelly bit at an answer :-P
@Chopper3 I thought it was a rather interesting question; if not terribly relevant SF.
16:39
@ChrisS It's tangentially relevant
A good sysadmin should be able to say "Jumbo frames aren't standardized, therefore no standard way to negotiate theme exists" - it helps if you can point at a reference.
@Iain Reject and flag on SF, but yes.
@voretaq7 You mean flag on SO for migration to Unix.SE?
@ChrisS yes, SO is what I meant to say
I'm tired of picking up after their dogs - I'm at the point of "Throw the shit back on their side of the fence" :-)
done
16:48
@Iain Make sure you put the poo in a nice bag for them <- cute halloween flash game, but annoying sound
@voretaq7 Oh good $DEITY, "annoying" doesn't even start to convey my urge to destroy that flaming noise box.
@voretaq7 what @ChrisS said
and yet the only way to make it stop is to get shit on your shoe....
THE PERFECT STACK OVERFLOW METAPHOR!
@voretaq7 you should drop it and that comment in TL
@Iain I was already mean to SO about the first bad migration today. It's someone else's turn now :P
16:59
Would you guys like this migrated from dba.se?
0
Q: PerfMon counters have different Page File % Usage values for _Total and C:\pagefile.sys for SQL Server on VM

caljermI am collecting PerfMon counters on a SQL Server 2008 server (which is hosted on a VM), and I am getting different Page File % Usage values for _Total and C:\pagefile.sys. The C:\pagefile.sys values are consistently at zero, and the _Total values are consistently around 26. Other counters (Memo...

@MaxVernon meeeeeeeeeeeh
He probably just has two pagefiles or no pagefile at c:\pagefile.sys
@MDMarra lol that's what I thought
But I suppose it's on-topic here
There should be a null.se site setup for those types of questions to be migrated into
@voretaq7 what do you think about that?
You've got a diamond and all. Is that question worthy of living here?
17:03
@MDMarra I try not to think. It kills brain cells.
I wouldn't object to it, but I'm not a windows guy.
Then again if I saw that behavior I'd reach the conclusion @MDMarra did: I must have my pagefile somewhere else (and ask the next natural question: How to I monitor OTHER pagefile locations?)
@MaxVernon Just migrate it. I'll crush his hopes and dreams here. :)
@MDMarra Nice!
.....................
-3
Q: How do I pay the least for Windows Server 2008 R2 64 bit?

user1003885I've been using a trial version of Windows Server 2008 R2 64 bit and have ~100 days left. What's the cheapest and easiest/best way of obtaining an authentic license key? I called the Microsoft 1-800 number and got the runaround because they assume I'm with a large business. And, I had a hard t...

...wut
How on earth did 5 people on SO think it was OK to move that here.
@MDMarra Because developers.
5
17:08
I love that I know exactly what that is without having to click anything
@MaxVernon And speaking of "because developers," that site should be named dev.null.se
no doubt!
goddamn balmer!
@WesleyDavid Woooo Wooooo Woooo! Give it up for me!
@TomO'Connor Howdy Tom. Long time, no see
17:20
@Adrian Helloo! :)
@TomO'Connor Have to turn my ringer off because your Twitter keeps setting it off in the US West Coast wee hours. =)
@Adrian Huh? What've I done? o.o
@TomO'Connor Following you and @voretaq7 on Twitter. Rather chatty, you both are. =)
@Adrian Hee.
I'm going to kill me some developers today.
17:32
@Adrian oooh, link me!
@ewwhite And you're duly Follow'd.
no, not your YOUR Twitter... to that @voretaq7 fool.
@ewwhite Bah. Why would you want to talk to him anyway?
oh, okayyy.
@voretaq7, New York, NY
A B C D E F G... just the basics. Loquacious on Twitter, taciturn in person. Do not taunt Happy Fun @Voretaq7
20.7k tweets, 370 followers, following 99 users
17:36
have I missed any of you on Twitter? Oh hey!
Grr. Stupid Unity cut buffer.
@Adrian That's the best mob boss name I've ever encountered
very chatty
So here's a fun one... I need to actually test a web filter
and need a dirty website...
@JoelESalas Heh. My mother's high school friend was related to a mob family in Chicago. Married a Chicago PD officer. Very cordial wedding from what I heard.
17:39
@ewwhite brazzers.com
I can't use that one for this specific client.
@ewwhite With your customer base, I'd think you wouldn't need any help with that.
@ewwhite deviantart.com?
@MichaelHampton Well, make sure to take pics and post them on Twitter.
oh, good idea... borderline
@ewwhite had an old GF that was into BDSM. Shop talk was a bit interesting.
17:40
sex.com? playboy.com? penthouse.com?

How is it possible to have trouble coming up with a dirty website?
I need to test this filter ahead of an audit... but it's not MY system, so I don't want anything too awful in the filter logs
@ewwhite Ah. so no horse fetish stuff. Gotcha.
playboy.com

The front page is kinda racy, but nothing more than chicks in swimsuits, and it's universally flagged as an adult site.
@MichaelHampton I'm really tempted to click that, but I suspect I might have to kill you if I do... so I'll wait until you're done killing you some developers.
17:43
So I have a certain developer here who (1) thinks I run a DevOps operation, (2) wants root on the production server, (3) thinks I'm incompetent, and (4) I just had to ask him for steps to reproduce his problem. How slowly should he die?
@MichaelHampton Sounds like a real pain in the ass. I say quickly and painfully. Aim to maximize his suffering, while minimizing your exposure to him, and his use of valuable oxygen.
@MichaelHampton It should be over with several decades from today
@MikeyB Sword on your foot? You don't happen to belong to SCA do you?
Fortunately the client is kind of fed up with this particular developer, so I may just let the client fire him. With or without a flamethrower.
@Adrian Nope… royalmedievalfaire.org I was cleaning out my closet and dropped it on my foot. Point first :( Fortunately it was only a shortsword.
17:50
Funnily enough...
25
Q: How do you test your porn filter

ZoredacheFor testing antivirus we have EICAR, for SPAM, we have GTUBE. Is there a standard site that is or should be included in blacklists that you can use for testing instead of going to your favorite porn site in front of your boss, the CEO, or someone else who feels that seeing such a site is an excu...

I don't have any good videos, this one is from a rehearsal. Watch it at 2x speed and it'll be a little quicker than we do it on the day of. (This one is from www.robininthehood.com, not RMF)
@MikeyB Nice.
@Adrian It's mostly retweets these days
That was a fun fight - on the day of dress rehearsal we did the whole fight and then at the end: "Surrender!" "Never!" "There is a shortage of perfect breasts in this world - I would hate to spoil these!"
Damn near corpsed the entire cast.
@MikeyB I have a friend who's in the Harlech Medieval Society - they do the full contact stuff youtube.com/…
17:59
@Iain Looks like fun! All our work is stage combat. Fun stuff - it's nice to be able to get out of work and go swing around giant steel blades at each other.
@MikeyB my cow-orker is Sir Paul of Liverpool in that clip - even though he's wearing plate and chain/leather some of the bruises he turns up with are unreal. He's even broken a couple of fingers ... all in fun
It always worries me when I see my password read back to me in plain text while signing up for something...
@Iain I just had a reason to post an old pic of our MicroVAXes.
2
A: Are bare steel floor tiles suitable for a server room?

WardThat floor system sounds very similar to what we had at a previous job, and over the raised floor panels we had identically-sized ESD carpet tiles. I have no idea what brand any of it was, but a quick google for ESD carpet tiles gave me this, for one The carpet tiles we had were fairly thick an...

@Ward only if wet
This picture has popped up a few times on facebook today - I was amused.
18:17
@tombull89 Met him (and his brother) quite a few times in the late 80's as they have a lot to do with Leicester Uni
Hmm. Today's word of the day is `coterminous`, meaning `provide the support we paid for on *this* product, or we'll stop buying support on *any* of your products.`

Learning is fun. And seriously, eff markdown. What the effing eff is up with that effing piece of eff?
Fscking Developers
Oh, hey, 9-track tape and part of The Grey Wall
@Ward :) what are they 3500 ?
@Ward our's was a desktop front autoloader just pop the tape in, close the door and it auto wound the tale onto the other reel
The Devs are buying a bunch of books on Agile Programming and Rapid-Release sigh.
Next thing you know they'll discover DevOps and start thinking they know enough to admin their boxes.
18:27
@Iain I don't recall now, that wasn't from DEC. You had to load it yourself, but it was "direct" (don't recall the term - there were no spring-loaded rollers on arms you had to wind the tape over to absorb slack)
I think our's was a TSZ07 - just looking for a photo
@Iain where's the fun in THAT? 9-track metal tape should be loaded by vacuum!
@Ward "finger-saving" is the usual term
@voretaq7 it was
Ok, is it my imagination, or should 'ls -a *.swp' match Vi swap files?
@Iain bah - that's a safety tape drive! REAL tape drives expose the leader and are all finicky needing manual attention during the loading process so you can get your finger chopped off! :-)
18:32
[root@columbia manifests]# ls -a *.swp
ls: cannot access *.swp: No such file or directory
[root@columbia manifests]# ls -a .*.swp
.site.pp.swp
@Iain What a bugger to clean the heads on.
@Ward it was easy to get at - just lift the lid - tbh we hardly used it, by the time we got it most of our active stuff was on TK50s - that was mainly for reading old data once in a blue moon
The couple people who had data on old 9-track tapes found that they'd deteriorated and the oxide practically blew off.
when disks got big enough we consolidated all of the old reel to reel tapes onto TK50/70
I think we booted standalone backup once off the TK-70 to prove it could be done, but only ever used it for a couple installations. The 8mm drive on Ernie was our backup system, and we used cheap analog tapes for years with no problems.
18:40
@Ward that was one of those things that had to be done. I had stabackit on a tk50 - it worked remarkably well
@Chopper3 Nice bewb.
@Ward The saddest part of the story, is that the server on the left was really named "Cutbert" thus the framing of the shot suspiciously lops off the leftmost part of the full name tag.
@Adrian Imagination. The * glob doesn't match filenames starting with .
I wish I'd had a better digital camera or at least gotten someone to take better pictures of some stuff back then. For some reason, in the same directory I've got this crappy picture:
@WesleyDavid You could get a cheap* (*for DEC values of cheap) cluster of two MicroVAXes, and another organization had already used Calvin and Hobbes...
I spent a month locked in a small room programming that damned PLC (row of white rectangles on the top with black stripes between them) and only have this one crappy picture of it.
michael@challenger:~$ ls *authority
ls: cannot access *authority: No such file or directory
michael@challenger:~$ shopt -s dotglob
michael@challenger:~$ ls *authority
.ICEauthority .Xauthority
@MikeyB Thanks. Obviously I need more coffee. The triple has worn off.
Speaking of that, someone just donated a Keurig to the office. Along with 30 cases of Keurig cups of various flavors.
18:58
@Ward You mean 8-track. Music used to be recorded on 8-tracks, in the dark days before technology.
@Ward So I wonder who needed the 'beware of electric shock' sign.
Was that a response to somebody being an idiot?
What's with all the shots of old hardware? Is this "when I was a junior sysadmin we had to bang two rocks togther to get a zero" day?

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