what did you learn today? (part 2)

[sryan2k1]

One of my first project at this job was to finish up our Xen to VMware migration and it took far longer then it should have, just because Xen was such a pain in the ass.

 

[markwo]

PaveHawk-[/url]":394mzjck]I have to use the Dell Online Solutions Configurator. Within it, when configuring a server, is an option for cooling that reads: "Fresh Air Cooling".

What is that? Do my servers that I order get a few free RUs in a rack near an ocean breeze? Or do they get to be settled out on a nice little garden somewhere?

Dell Link 1
Dell Link 2
Zdnet

Sounds like using outside, unconditioned air in a datacenter coupled with allowing to run at higher temps.

Does the fresh air cooling give you a discount?

 

[Paladin]

Usually it means the server has bios configuration to allow higher shutdown temps, possibly higher speed fans and more efficient power supply options selected by default.

It's not an option worth looking at unless your datacenter already has that design in mind.

 

[markwo]

Ah, I was thinking "Dell Online Solutions Configurator" meant cloud hosting, he was provisioning something in a Dell data-center, and they were giving him an option to host it in a less controlled environment. BIOS config for a server he's buying makes more sense.

 

[M. Jones]

Entegy[/url]":30ns7q1m]
My girlfriend said it's never too early for vodka.

I learned that I picked a hell of a month not to have mixable alcohols in my desk. I'm down to unopened bottles of absinthe and cabernet sauvignon, and instant pisco sour mix.

 

[finni]

M. Jones[/url]":33zws7xz] absinthe and cabernet sauvignon, and instant pisco sour mix.

Aha. "The starry night in Cusco" - best avoided at all but the best bars.

 

[ImRaptor]

hernias[/url]":273bfm10]

Barmaglot[/url]":273bfm10]All the domains we host there (which is quite a few) are not responding, and even their main website is down, so it appears they've once again fucked up their DNS.

Also, in unrelated news, our <expletive deleted> beloved lawmakers just announced yet another <expletive deleted> DST change. What I wouldn't give, to have them, all 120 of them, go over all the affected systems and adjust the settings, by hand. This would actually be very useful - it'd keep them busy and unable to cause any more harm. <expletive deleted>

DST has no place in modern society. Either make it year-round or eliminate it entirely.

+1 for that.
DST is a waste of effort to deal with. Places that don't follow DST transitions seem to survive just fine, so maybe it's time to just put the old method to pasture as it only seems to happen at the sacrifice of productivity.

 

[PaveHawk-]

markwo[/url]":2njrj1g0]

PaveHawk-[/url]":2njrj1g0]I have to use the Dell Online Solutions Configurator. Within it, when configuring a server, is an option for cooling that reads: "Fresh Air Cooling".

What is that? Do my servers that I order get a few free RUs in a rack near an ocean breeze? Or do they get to be settled out on a nice little garden somewhere?

Dell Link 1
Dell Link 2
Zdnet

Sounds like using outside, unconditioned air in a datacenter coupled with allowing to run at higher temps.

Does the fresh air cooling give you a discount?

I expected that, but they haven't given any points of reference. Its also a zero cost item.

Dell's OSC sucks btw. You cant configure the flex bay drives if you select an R720XD. And the overall user experience is horrid - tiny fixed width/height table which wont scale. I have 27" and 24" monitors, let me rescale it so I can see more of the configuration options ffs.

 

[hernias]

Barmaglot[/url]":3cpcvfch]Tell that to our penguin friends.

I live in a place where it is possible to look south into Canada (I assume that's what you're referring to). I'm still all for it.

 

[Barmaglot]

hernias[/url]"peqenmt]

Barmaglot[/url]"peqenmt]Tell that to our penguin friends.

I live in a place where it is possible to look south into Canada (I assume that's what you're referring to). I'm still all for it.

No, I'm referring to these penguins. They keep moving DST so that they get shorter fasts or something like that.

 

[hernias]

Barmaglot[/url]":3hlyad1m]

hernias[/url]":3hlyad1m]

Barmaglot[/url]":3hlyad1m]Tell that to our penguin friends.

I live in a place where it is possible to look south into Canada (I assume that's what you're referring to). I'm still all for it.

No, I'm referring to these penguins. They keep moving DST so that they get shorter fasts or something like that.

Ah, I got it now. I saw your Israel tribus but had no idea DST was a religious/political issue over there.

 

[Barmaglot]

PaveHawk-[/url]":11ko5ash]
Dell's OSC sucks btw. You cant configure the flex bay drives if you select an R720XD.

Actually you can, if you select a 24+2 chassis.

 

[Scotttheking]

Red Hat scheduled their 2014 annual conference such that it coincides with the first days of Passover. I really wanted to go

 

[K0DE]

Hahahaha! This is awesome.

 

[Entegy]

https://twitter.com/stevenf/status/311344402809372672

 

[Pontiphex]

Scotttheking[/url]":26hpxwpt]Red Hat scheduled their 2014 annual conference such that it coincides with the first days of Passover. I really wanted to go

So you could say you're going to...pass over...their conference...YEAHHHHHHHH!!!!!

 

[Danger Mouse]

Scotttheking[/url]":3cmu63pv]Red Hat scheduled their 2014 annual conference such that it coincides with the first days of Passover. I really wanted to go

Uh, yeah, that was kind of dumb of them.

Also, companies should avoid conferences that hit the Chinese/Lunar New Year or Christmas or Thanksgiving or July 4th.

Avoiding Ramadan would also be useful.

 

[sryan2k1]

Uh, yeah, that was kind of dumb of them.

Hardly.

 

[Zapman987]

Vendors do not understand firewalls.

Had a vendor come in to show off a box. I ask for what his port requirements are, reply is 443 outbound. First mistake, GUImgmt is inbound.

Get here, setup the box, figure that mistake out. I flip the FW rule to just be inbound.

Then hes complaining it cant pull updates. Change the line to be bidirectional.

Somewhere in there I set him up on our guest wireless. The box is in our lab. Those nets dont have access to each other.

He sits down to try to connect to the box. Fail.

We ended up doing a virtual meeting from a VM to the box, and then connected with him (meetings are allowed all over).

I got a note from the account manager (different guy) asking if we want to try out their FW product since ours seem to have lots of issues

 

[Danger Mouse]

sryan2k1[/url]":vpm5ucp4]

Uh, yeah, that was kind of dumb of them.

Hardly.

Scheduling major conferences over major religious/cultural holidays? Yeah, kinda dumb. You want to maximize attendance and show sensitivity towards the major important religious or cultural holidays of the major religions/cultures, where it can be done reasonably because of demographics.

Passover is the biggie, along with Yom Kippur.

For most Asians, it would be lunar new year (although it can differ by a few weeks, the biggie would be the actual lunar new year, as celebrated by the Chinese, which just about everybody follows).

Americans - Thanksgiving, Christmas.

Muslims, Ramadan

 

[sryan2k1]

Scheduling gigantic convention time is expensive and problematic. It's rare you won't schedule it on top of something someone is going to get upset by.

 

[Duckie Dooh]

Entegy[/url]":njlv6lz4]https://twitter.com/stevenf/status/311344402809372672

Now I get things like
"My Butt for Windows"
"What Is Butt Technology - Simplify Your Path to my Butt‎"
"WiFi Internet Services by My Butt"

I need to install this on the computer of one of my sales guys...

 

[ronelson]

Now I get things like
"My Butt for Windows"
"What Is Butt Technology - Simplify Your Path to my Butt‎"
"WiFi Internet Services by My Butt"

I need to install this on the computer of one of my sales guys...

This is almost enough to make me use Chrome full time. This is just the tip of the butt!

 

[kennedye]

How much nicer it is to copy out xterm-256color to all our Solaris hosts via Puppet than via a for-scp loop.

(also how nice it is to finally not be dumped into ed when trying to edit a file because I forgot to export TERM=vt100 before logging in)

 

[ronelson]

(also how nice it is to finally not be dumped into ed when trying to edit a file because I forgot to export TERM=vt100 before logging in)

The constant bane of my existence is a few servers where I have an old .bashrc that sets alias vi=vim but vim isn't installed, or where EDITOR isn't set and commands like svn flag it. They get fixed, but we just have way too many servers and I have too many accounts

 

[Danger Mouse]

sryan2k1[/url]":lqiz9d2w]Scheduling gigantic convention time is expensive and problematic. It's rare you won't schedule it on top of something someone is going to get upset by.

True, but you try as you can.

At least it wasn't something blockheaded like scheduling something for a national holiday in the intended destination.

---

In other news, the difference between Altiris Deployment Server 6.9SP5 MR2 and MR3 is like night and day for stability. MR3 no crashy. MR2 crash crash crash crash with a side order of crash.

That and I get to work this morning to deal with:

-hijacked email account
-resulted in blacklisting of our domain
-crashy Altiris server
-bad GPO causing login issue with blades on Win7
-a dozen or more virus infected systems that are part of a botnet
-more hilarity

The good news is that our Data Domain appears to be okay, as does our backup.

 

[Rick25]

That where the View documentation says install the Root Cert into the keystore to enable smart card support they're actually meaning install the issuing CA cert. For good measure I also added the Root CA cert. Then had to upload the certs into the Zero client so it wouldn't complain.

On the upside I learnt that if you export a Windows CA and pick the DER encoded .cer file, you can just rename the extension and suddenly you've got a .pem file without having to resort to openssl cli stuff.

 

[Danger Mouse]

Rick25[/url]":3qeb5ody]That where the View documentation says install the Root Cert into the keystore to enable smart card support they're actually meaning install the issuing CA cert. For good measure I also added the Root CA cert. Then had to upload the certs into the Zero client so it wouldn't complain.

On the upside I learnt that if you export a Windows CA and pick the DER encoded .cer file, you can just rename the extension and suddenly you've got a .pem file without having to resort to openssl cli stuff.

AHHH, nice. Does that give you the private key as well?

 

[bsdasym]

ImRaptor[/url]":3k3fuo1l]

hernias[/url]":3k3fuo1l]

Barmaglot[/url]":3k3fuo1l]All the domains we host there (which is quite a few) are not responding, and even their main website is down, so it appears they've once again fucked up their DNS.

Also, in unrelated news, our <expletive deleted> beloved lawmakers just announced yet another <expletive deleted> DST change. What I wouldn't give, to have them, all 120 of them, go over all the affected systems and adjust the settings, by hand. This would actually be very useful - it'd keep them busy and unable to cause any more harm. <expletive deleted>

DST has no place in modern society. Either make it year-round or eliminate it entirely.

+1 for that.
DST is a waste of effort to deal with. Places that don't follow DST transitions seem to survive just fine, so maybe it's time to just put the old method to pasture as it only seems to happen at the sacrifice of productivity.

Years ago I gave up on keeping up with all the changes and mandated all server clocks be set to UTC. Life improved. Client libs can handle conversions for display, so only those of us messing with crontabs have to really care.

 

[PaveHawk-]

Barmaglot[/url]":18sga1dv]

PaveHawk-[/url]":18sga1dv]
Dell's OSC sucks btw. You cant configure the flex bay drives if you select an R720XD.

Actually you can, if you select a 24+2 chassis.

Nope, not in my OSC. I select that chassis and I dont get the option to configure the flex bays.

[edit]

Applying the CIS WS 2012 Benchmark to a DC absolutely tanks its performance. Goes from being responsive to taking 3-5 seconds to perform any task via RDP.

Now I have to work out why.

 

[El Guapo]

Friday, I learned about adding additional VMKernel ports to utilize all network links for vMotion. Now both 10G ports on each host are using during vMotion. Just for fun, I put a host in maintenance mode. It was really fast.

 

[Rick25]

Danger Mouse[/url]":3belvcvt]

Rick25[/url]":3belvcvt]That where the View documentation says install the Root Cert into the keystore to enable smart card support they're actually meaning install the issuing CA cert. For good measure I also added the Root CA cert. Then had to upload the certs into the Zero client so it wouldn't complain.

On the upside I learnt that if you export a Windows CA and pick the DER encoded .cer file, you can just rename the extension and suddenly you've got a .pem file without having to resort to openssl cli stuff.

AHHH, nice. Does that give you the private key as well?

Not from what I can see.

 

[Danger Mouse]

Rick25[/url]":1i1px5h3]

Danger Mouse[/url]":1i1px5h3]

Rick25[/url]":1i1px5h3]That where the View documentation says install the Root Cert into the keystore to enable smart card support they're actually meaning install the issuing CA cert. For good measure I also added the Root CA cert. Then had to upload the certs into the Zero client so it wouldn't complain.

On the upside I learnt that if you export a Windows CA and pick the DER encoded .cer file, you can just rename the extension and suddenly you've got a .pem file without having to resort to openssl cli stuff.

AHHH, nice. Does that give you the private key as well?

Not from what I can see.

Okay, so you still need the openssl route if extracting the private key. Still very nice.

 

[Barmaglot]

bsdasym[/url]":l96i3asd]
Years ago I gave up on keeping up with all the changes and mandated all server clocks be set to UTC. Life improved. Client libs can handle conversions for display, so only those of us messing with crontabs have to really care.

Except when the client libs are out of date. Which is a never ending chase to keep up with the constant changes.

 

[hernias]

Barmaglot[/url]":31yy2f69]

bsdasym[/url]":31yy2f69]
Years ago I gave up on keeping up with all the changes and mandated all server clocks be set to UTC. Life improved. Client libs can handle conversions for display, so only those of us messing with crontabs have to really care.

Except when the client libs are out of date. Which is a never ending chase to keep up with the constant changes.

It would be nice to point all of your systems at some sort of internal-use-only time service that could be scheduled for DST adjustments. (It is probable this already exists and I am not aware.)

 

[Barmaglot]

Nope, because then stuff like out-of-org meeting invites and unmanaged clients will break.

 

[M. Jones]

• VMware ESX internal monitor error *** vcpu-1:EPT misconfiguration: PA
  17aa7b0c18

I wish both versions of the vSphere client would put the timezone in their timestamps, eliminating uncertainty. Is there no option to configure this? I want full-fat ISO 8601 format.

 

[M. Jones]

bsdasym[/url]":2w53tnoq]
Years ago I gave up on keeping up with all the changes and mandated all server clocks be set to UTC. Life improved. Client libs can handle conversions for display, so only those of us messing with crontabs have to really care.

Hopefully you actually mean setting the server timezone to UTC. The realtime clocks keep time as RTC internally for any OS newer or more advanced than DOS. x86 PC hardware RTC are traditionally set to localtime and Windows follows that default, but real hardware and Unixes default to UTC for the hardware realtime clock.

 

[hawkbox]

Man, give a server a descriptive name or put it's purpose in the vSphere notes but for FUCKS SAKE do one or the other!

A050 Decription "DSS" WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT MEAN?!?

 

[M. Jones]

hernias[/url]":1915p3yj]
It would be nice to point all of your systems at some sort of internal-use-only time service that could be scheduled for DST adjustments. (It is probable this already exists and I am not aware.)

All time protocols sync UTC, and leave TZ and DST adjustments to the client. Any other method is madness, for reasons left as an exercise to the reader.

The way you get DST and TZ updates is by applying patches. Generally this is the 'tzdata' database (and you'll often have tzdata-java as well, because Sun was foolish in several ways when designing Java).

Think about applying tzdata updates by hand, or having outdated TZ/DST configurations, and you'll be reminded why you need to be able to apply patches and updates promptly to any device sufficiently smart to be displaying time. Any electronic device incapable of automatically and accurately adjusting time with DST -- which means automatic synchronization and tzdata updates -- has no business displaying time, full-stop. This has more profound implications than you might think.