The Comms Room

Mark Henderson

00:00

Oh wait I should have read up further haha, you're supporting leaving ping enabled

Joel E Salas

hauehauehauehauhea

Michael Hampton

00:14

If I want to get data out of your corporate network, I can find a way. Blocking all ICMP? I don't care. I'll just convince somebody into putting it on a USB stick and FedExing it to me. Good luck.

Mark Henderson

@MichaelHampton You should be a penetration tester. Put all your BOFH tendancies to good use and have fun pwning networks

And you can probably charge $250/hour for it

Michael Hampton

@MarkHenderson Eh, there are much better people than me doing that.

Mark Henderson

Get a WiFi Pineapple, put on a thick south american accent for some social engineering, drop some USB sticks in the foyer, bang the receptionist to find out her password reset questions, the usual stuff

Brush up on your NOP sleds, figure out how to read CVEs...

Michael Hampton

Bang the receptionist? I suppose that could be called penetration testing...

Mark Henderson

@MichaelHampton There are probably easier ways of getting her password (like looking at the sticky note on her monitor), but they're not as fun

Scott Pack

00:33

Ladies.

Michael Hampton

@ScottPack Receptionists often are, yes.

Mark Henderson

@MichaelHampton And the ones that aren't ladies still like cock, so I guess they have that in common

Scott Pack

@Joel Here's another one

Michael Hampton

@MarkHenderson I'm afraid the only cock I like is my own. So they're SOL.

Scott Pack

32

Q: Is it a bad idea for a firewall to block ICMP?

This question was inspired by this answer which states in part: The generic firewall manifest file finishes off by dropping everything I didn't otherwise allow (besides ICMP. Don't turn off ICMP). But, is it truly a good practice for a firewall to allow ICMP? What are the security implicati...

Mark Henderson

00:35

Friend of mine reckons that people who don't like cock are in the minority, because the popluation of Straight Women + Gay Men > Popluation of Straight Men + Gay Women Who Don't Use Strapons Or Dildos

Scott Pack

You need to add the population of Gay Women to Straight Men

Joel E Salas

@MarkHenderson not necessarily, 10% of any given population is the homosex, so (45% straight women+ 5% gay men) + (45% straight men + 5% gay women) = 100%

even stevens

Michael Hampton

I think I've read too many RFCs.

Scott Pack

Probably. Those things are dry.

Michael Hampton

That reminds me, I was going to write an Android app for reading RFCs, since the three that exist range from really crappy to steaming pile of shit...

Scott Pack

00:41

That's a pretty new RFC

Michael Hampton

@ScottPack True, but they just set down what everybody had already been doing for years already.

Scott Pack

I'm trying very hard not to make a your mom joke.

Mark Henderson

@JoelESalas fixed

Apparently women have a head start as they're already at like 51% or something

Michael Hampton

   Based on this reasoning, a large number of implementations completely
   ignore ICMPv4 Source Quench messages meant for TCP connections.  This
   behavior has been implemented in, at least, Linux [Linux] since 2004,
   and in FreeBSD [FreeBSD], NetBSD [NetBSD], and OpenBSD [OpenBSD]
   since 2005.

Scott Pack

Redirect had been the same for well over a decade at this point.

Add of a few years ago it was fun to throw some out and see who responded.

Michael Hampton

00:49

I'll have to try that sometime...

Scott Pack

I feel like your trying to tilt a windmill, though. That's still as valid type code and named for a fantastic taking pint regarding the varied uses of ICMP.

Michael Hampton

It was just an interesting side note.

I'll bet XP boxes still respond to Source Quench...

Scott Pack

IOS probably still sends them out, too.

Michael Hampton

Did it ever?

Cisco IOS Software Releases later than 11.3 and 12.0 do not include the source quench feature.

Scott Pack

I just assume IOS will do anything we consist old and busted

Michael Hampton

00:57

0

Q: Accessing Linux File Server

I have been given a Linux server with a static IP address. I don't know what the static IP address is. I have plugged it into my Telstra Adsl modem I can't see or connect to it. how can I connect to the machine and configure it on my new network? (what should I be googling for help)

linux linux-networking

DIE DIE DIE

Mark Henderson

@MichaelHampton Fuck yeah, Australians contributing to the mess

Scott Pack

Assholes. All of them.

Michael Hampton

So if I called somebody's firewall an "abomination" would that ruin my chances?

Mark Henderson

@MichaelHampton Chances of nailing them?

Michael Hampton

Um, of being voted onto the island?

Michael Hampton

01:19

Oct 25 '12 at 4:10, by Michael Hampton

Have you deployed IPv6 yet? I'm getting sick of this NAT shit.

Joel E Salas

There's this LOPSA town hall session going on in Freenode as @MattSimmons said

How do you guys feel about LOPSA

ewwhite

meh

Matt Simmons

See? Jaded and pessimistic, like I said ;-)

Joel E Salas

I do think LOPSA can do more to seem less like stodgy old UNIX guys

where's the github presence? Where's the cool tools?

how about a bug tracker to track shit that LOPSA needs done?

Michael Hampton

Where's the tutorials on dead body disposal?

Joel E Salas

01:32

:D

Matt Simmons

Oh Joel.

:)

Part of the reason that I'm running for the Board is that I got seethingly mad at the Board

Joel E Salas

@MattSimmons Then I vote Matt Simmons

Matt Simmons

I wrote the "New Chapter Guide" for LOPSA chapters, and I developed it on github

I was told in no uncertain terms that by developing it on github, that I was opening the group to legal action.

Joel E Salas

Whaaaa??

Matt Simmons

exactly.

That's the kind of brain damaged view former members of the board had

That person isn't on the board anymore. But there are so many things wrong

Board meetings are closed to members

That's insane.

Joel E Salas

01:37

"We're a shadowy cabal of unwelcoming - wait where is everyone?"

Scott Pack

The #lopsa irc room is awfully dang devopsy. They don't seem nearly as neckbeardy as what I would expect from SAGE.

ewwhite

@MattSimmons double-meh

Joel E Salas

"We need to find out what the younger sysadmins are using and get the word out there that we exist."

How can you not know??

Matt Simmons

It's definitely not SAGE, but then even SAGE isn't SAGE anymore ;-)

BTW, I'm part of the "what training should we have at LISA" team this year, and if you want to see some kind of great training, drop me a line at [email protected] please.

Joel E Salas

@MattSimmons anything automation

ewwhite

01:41

I'm still on the lopsa mailing list. I roll my eyes at some of the questions.

Joel E Salas

@ewwhite example?

ewwhite

But maybe it's because it's a mailing list

Michael Hampton

What is this IRC channel I should be watching?

Matt Simmons

#LOPSA-Live

Joel E Salas

freenode #lopsa-live, I'm warning you now it's kind of frustrating

Matt Simmons

01:41

on freenode

ewwhite

*Without checking the internet, and before you listen to other peoples' anecdotes or anything, I'd like to hear your gut feel, I want to know what your natural instinct is. What do you think about the reliability of the following tools?

If you have personal experience with them, obviously, that will shape your perception. But even with no knowledge or experience with a particular tool, I still want to know your instinct. Because your preconceived notions influence decisions you make, give you bias in terms of what tools you even think about using or researching.*

Matt Simmons

Joel: Automation tools, techniques, or what? We're always pretty heavy on config management training

ewwhite

Focus on reliability. ;-)

rsync
rsnapshot
rdiff-backup
tar
amanda
bacula
Any other tools that you'd like to mention, that you're likely to use for backups

Michael Hampton

@ewwhite I know. It's 2013, who the fuck uses mailing lists anymore?!

ewwhite

@JoelESalas THere was another about cable management arms

and I fight the urge to point people to SF

Joel E Salas

01:45

@ewwhite Right? SF has become the SME, I don't see how LOPSA can take that back short of reanswering all the questions better somehow

Michael Hampton

Too late, someone else just did.

Chris S

►

^Dude is f-ing insane

Matt Simmons

I don't see LOPSA's reason for existing as being a better serverfault.

ewwhite

@MattSimmons it's not... but the pace of discussion on the list is maddening...

but maybe I'm impatient now

Matt Simmons

the IRC channel, or the tech@lopsa list?

Andrew

01:51

@ewwhite dirvish

(yay, perl)

ewwhite

@Andrew Sorry, that was the beginning of a discussion on the lopsa mailing list... it was weird

Andrew

ok, virtualise everything, use VM/SAN snapshots, SAN dedup, and SAN replication. Done.

most existing backup systems have pitfalls in some area

anyway, where can I bitch about the mod elections? there's one candidate who I think is completely unsuitable.

Mark Henderson

@Andrew Here, or meta

Joel E Salas

@ChrisS FPSRussia is a certain unbelievable level of genius/madness

Mark Henderson

Or as a comment on their nomination

ewwhite

02:03

@JoelESalas nutz

Chris S

@JoelESalas Did you see that car door?! He's lucky to be alive!

@JoelESalas Also, the fake Russian accent is getting old. Dude's a white boy from Texas, his Southern accent leaks through, and I don't think he's trying as hard as when his channel was new.

ewwhite

@Andrew oh?

Matt Simmons

Well, that was fun, right?

Joel E Salas

@MattSimmons Not sure how to feel about it

Michael Hampton

@MattSimmons That almost seemed like a complete waste of time.

Matt Simmons

02:12

lol

sorry

did you get a feel for anything?

Michael Hampton

It seems like you have one group of people who want to make LOPSA a useful organization for sysadmins, and another group who want to use it to play their own little power trip games.

Joel E Salas

@MattSimmons I think you know what I'd want to see, any chance of that stuff happening?

Michael Hampton

(BTW, I Hate Hate Hate politics....)

Matt Simmons

Joel: There's definitely a chance. We are our own biggest enemy. I'm hoping that I can kind of absorb and channel some of the friction on the board

I'm relatively decent at things like that. And I think I can be persuasive to the majority of the people who are running and are likely to get elected.

But ultimately, we'll see.

Michael Hampton

I came into it near the end, so I didn't see the whole thing and would have to read the transcript, but a couple of those people definitely gave me the slimy politician vibe. At least one of them is apparently a current board member.

Matt Simmons

02:17

hah

So, you can DM me if you want, but I'm curious about who. ;-)

Michael Hampton

Well, I want to take a look at the full transcript, just to be sure, first.

Matt Simmons

sure

It'll be live in an hour or so, most likely

Joel E Salas

Holy fuck this is driving me absolutely nuts

I can't figure out how this Jenkins job ever worked before

Scott Pack

@Matt If only you had a soapbox to promote yourself...I hear things like podcasts are good for things like that.

Matt Simmons

hahaha

Yeah, I've got this blog thing that I never write on anymore ;-)

Scott Pack

02:21

:-)

Michael Hampton

@MattSimmons I'm already reading it now

Matt Simmons

ah, cool

Michael Hampton

@MattSimmons I heard you aren't really a standalone sysadmin anymore!

Matt Simmons

You heard correctly. I'm not renaming the blog, though ;-)

Being part of a team is magical. Until it's not. But mostly yes.

Michael Hampton

Is LOPSA a 501c4?

Matt Simmons

02:28

3c

err

c3

Michael Hampton

Oh, OK

All right, I skimmed the transcript. I don't feel very slimy politician about him anymore.

Matt Simmons

to be honest, I'm not sure the difference.

ah, ok

cool

That's good.

Because most of those people will end up being on the board.

There's N-1 board positions open

Michael Hampton

Wait, that transcript is definitely missing a lot of stuff.

Nothing from when I joined the channel at 21:41 until "give your final statements" is present in this transcript.

Scott Pack

Does is include Matt moving the other candidates for being old fogeys?

Michael Hampton

OK, so I guess mrbucket isn't going to get my vote.

lopsa.org/content/…

Matt Simmons

02:36

hah

Hrm

Michael Hampton

So the thing you mentioned about being told not to develop docs on github, for instance, isn't there.

Matt Simmons

I don't see anything missing

Do you have stuff in your log that isn't there?

Michael Hampton

Yep

Still on my screen, too.

Matt Simmons

What kinds of things?

I've closed my window, so I don't have it anymore

Hi Pete!

Michael Hampton

<PEPPERON1> Tech has definitely gone social. Tools like github and public bug trackers have completely changed the way projects and organizations are developed. What tooling does LOPSA need to connect with people (along the lines of the previous question) and make sure they can contribute if they want to?

Peter Grace

02:38

Hey Matt, what's happenin?

Michael Hampton

That question and all its answers, is completely missing. That's when I joined the channel.

<unpixie> This all sounds well and good but it seems every election cycle the bod nominees say wonderful things that never really come to fruition. What makes you think you can succeed this time?

Also missing.

Peter Grace

Sorry I missed lopsa-live, I'm in Denver this week.

Matt Simmons

Really, I PEPPERON1's question

Peter Grace

@CrabbyAdmin evan?

Michael Hampton

<TomLim> Matt, I hope you don't mind a question directly to you. Question for Matt: Your candidate statement explains your desire to grow LOPSA membership, which is great! However I put the numbers you listed into a spreadsheet and the numbers don't make sense. I calculated the year/year growth you projected. For the next 2 years you predict growth that is 22% y/y (average, uncompounded). After that you predict growth slows to 13% y/y then 11% y/y.

Missing.

Matt Simmons

02:38

That's there, too

(I totally looked for that one) ;-)

CrabbyAdmin

Michael, I think you need to clear your cache and reload

Matt Simmons

lopsa.org/content/…

CrabbyAdmin

are you sure you're looking at the right LOPSA-Live session and perhaps not the previous one?

Michael Hampton

CrabbyAdmin

that isn't tonight's

Matt Simmons

02:40

Oh right, that was a week ago

Michael Hampton

Oh crap. That explains why I can't find anything.

Matt Simmons

Tonight's is here: lopsa.org/content/…

hahaha only slightly ;-) They look exactly the same at a glance, so I think you can be forgiven for that

Michael Hampton

Ah, just found it. It wasn't up when he said it was up.

Damn varnish caching.

CrabbyAdmin

@PeterGrace - yes

Peter Grace

Nice, good to see you around

@Matt +1 on the attitude statement. It's pervasive in our field I think.

Matt Simmons

02:44

Thanks

:-)

Peter Grace

Is there anyone looking to form a LOPSA chapter in Denver? One of our sales guys confided that he really wants to become a sysadmin.

Matt Simmons

There are LOPSA members in Denver. I have heard people make noises about wanting to start a Denver chapter.

I would say that there's a distinctly non-zero chance that there will be a Denver chapter.

Peter Grace

Gotta have someone really motivated to do it, I guess.

CrabbyAdmin

I think once you get past Madison, LOPSA doesn't make another appear until the West Coast :)

Matt Simmons

Basically, LOPSA's willing to give a mailing list as soon as there's a leader.

We're working on other things that we can provide to chapters to help bootstrap them

(and we're open to ideas!)

Michael Hampton

02:47

Mailing list? In 2013?

Peter Grace

George and I were chatting last night about how cool it'd be to come up with "workshop courses" that can allow newcomers to learn-by-doing, utilizing VMs. I imagine other people have tried it before, but it'd be an interesting project

Michael Hampton

OK, it's a personal bias, I hate mailing lists.

Matt Simmons

There are good reasons for hating mailing lists.

Peter Grace

@Michael lopsa-discuss has some really good conversations.

Matt Simmons

There are good reasons for having mailing lists, too, though

Michael Hampton

02:48

@PeterGrace I like great conversations. But email is just such a clunky format for them.

Matt Simmons

What's the next-gen answer?

CrabbyAdmin

@MichaelHampton - what do you feel would be a better support mechanism for new chapters to get started?

Michael Hampton

@CrabbyAdmin What do new chapters need?

Peter Grace

Facebook pages.

(tongue-in-cheek)

CrabbyAdmin

;)

Peter Grace

02:50

sysadmins understand mailing lists.

Michael Hampton

@PeterGrace Yes, and every time I look at it, I want to rm -rf

Peter Grace

Sure they're not google hangouts, but they have good persistence and the barriers to use are very small.

CrabbyAdmin

the way I see it, the biggest challenges to running a chapter are:

1) Finding speakers
2) Recruiting members

Everything else is just details

Mark Henderson

What the fuck is wrong with the Windows Print Spooler? Has anyone ever succesfully cancelled a job that's been stuck in the print queue? I just had to stop the spooler and delete the print files on a computer that's had its document stuck in the queue since 2011

Peter Grace

yeah, jon boris was like "You're gonna present at LOPSA-NJ more, right?!"

@MarkHenderson That is the SOP for Un-Fucking a print spooler.

Mark Henderson

02:51

@PeterGrace I know; it shouldn't be nessesary. Why can't I just right-click and choose "cancel"? Why is that menu item even there?

CrabbyAdmin

net stop spooler :)

Peter Grace

Mark jobs for deletion, Restart-Service Spooler

CMD.EXE? POWERSHELL SIR

Michael Hampton

@MarkHenderson Remember to tell the user they need to print their document again. They might have forgotten, it having been 2011 and all.

Mark Henderson

@PeterGrace Booyah, now it's still there but it's at page 6 of 5 printed

And the printer is making funny noises

CrabbyAdmin

@PeterGrace ah yes, Restart-Service...need to train my brain to default to that instead of my old habits

Peter Grace

02:52

I am successfully brainwashed by @StevenMurawski. "PowerShell. PowerShell." It's like a chanting in hushed tones

Shane Madden

Having no Windows print servers to support is probably the best thing.

Let users' systems map the printers directly.

Peter Grace

@ShaneMadden you'd be surprised, for all the BS one goes through with spooler it's still pretty awesome.

@ShaneMadden ARRGGGHHH, ok, you're off the denver candidate list :P

@ShaneMadden by the way, I've been having a perpetual prograsm today as a result of futzing with hiera.

ewwhite

@PeterGrace I don't think the discussions are that good.

Peter Grace

it's like... puppet... but clean.

Mark Henderson

Grahhhhh

Start-Service : Service 'Print Spooler (spooler)' cannot be started due to the following error: Cannot open spooler service on computer '.'.

Peter Grace

02:54

@ewwhite Well, why don't you go take your cloudy skies over to /r/sysadmin

@ewwhite ;) How's it going?

ewwhite

@PeterGrace I did. And I won Reddit!

Mark Henderson

Fucking administrator rights

ewwhite

(you're supposed to win, right?)

Peter Grace

@MarkHenderson sorry brother.

ewwhite

@PeterGrace It's okay... I'm itchy...

Peter Grace

02:55

Heh, I am in the 5 year club on reddit I think now

Mark Henderson

Ok! 2.5 year print job is cleared

Shane Madden

@PeterGrace Haha! Man, I'm forever scarred by the print servers at the old gig.

Mark Henderson

I almost want to know what was in it though

Peter Grace

@MarkHenderson Probably lolcat pictures.

ewwhite

Mosquitoes are out in New York, and I was attacked out in streets.

CrabbyAdmin

02:55

@MarkHenderson might need to run PS as admin?

ewwhite

Been walking around Manhattan looking for dinner.

Mark Henderson

@PeterGrace Fuck if anyone in here was printing lolcal photos I would have to have words with them.

Peter Grace

@ewwhite you're in NYC? Are you there next week too?

Mark Henderson

Ink is expensive

@CrabbyAdmin Yeah that fixed it

Shane Madden

@PeterGrace Had an HP bug that would crash the entire spooler service on the server from one printer's SNMP being screwed up

ewwhite

02:56

@PeterGrace Naw, heading back to the Middle-West tomorrow

Michael Hampton

@PeterGrace For conversations I really prefer forums, Q&A sites like this, and chat. Especially more modern forum designs like Vanilla or Discourse. Mailing lists just remind me of the bad old days, and are much more inefficient compared to these.

Peter Grace

@ewwhite balls, ok, next time you're heading out to NYC let me know so we can grab some noms

Matt Simmons

ok, bed time. G'night.

Peter Grace

@Matt gnite!

CrabbyAdmin

@MichaelHampton I don't disagree, just asking what you think would be the best alternative

Shane Madden

02:57

@PeterGrace Group policy client-side preferences to throw the printers out to client systems works just fine for me. ;)

Peter Grace

@MichaelHampton Oh right, discourse! I should fire that up now that I've successfully figured out how to use Vagrant.

ewwhite

@PeterGrace But you guys aren't in the hip part of town, are you?

Midtown?

Peter Grace

@ShaneMadden But when you leverage a central server it can push drivers to multiple versions of windows without much effort

@ShaneMadden I know you can do that with GPO, but it's just easier inside print services.

Michael Hampton

@CrabbyAdmin It depends. That's really why I asked what a new chapter needs. What sort of stuff gets done. How it works. You want to select a tool which will make those tasks as easy as possible.

Peter Grace

@ewwhite Nope, FiDi. 110 William Street.

ewwhite

02:58

@PeterGrace Oh, south of me. I'm in SoHo.

CrabbyAdmin

@MichaelHampton how do you feel about Meetup? I use that with LOPSA DC but it isn't cheap

Peter Grace

Yup, FiDi is about as south as one gets before the harbor

CrabbyAdmin

I've found it to be a good place to find new members though

Michael Hampton

@CrabbyAdmin Meetup is great for organizing such things. Isn't there some free or lower-cost alternative by now?

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