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2976

Living Room / Re: Please help superboyac build a server (2013 edition).

« Last post by 40hz on August 07, 2013, 09:10 PM »

And now they have plastic cases without the sharp edges... so what are you going to do?  The reason that I liked metal cases is because it seemed that every time I cut myself, things would start working.  It just likes blood, you know?  Like voodoo.

Or... is that a sign of psychosis?  

-wraith808 (August 07, 2013, 07:46 PM)

Nope. The blood and the pain (and the risk of a tetanus infection) jogs some little grey cells and that one obvious beginner thing you thought you checked 200 tries earlier (but actually didn't) turns out to be the thing that needed doing.



Ten minutes plus one reboot later and you're laughing grimly to yourself while hoping nobody ever finds out about your stupid oversight. (Especially if you plan on billing them for your actual hours.) Which is yet another reason why so many sysadmins prefer to work well after regular business hours - and preferably as close to 1:00am as possible. (Even the security guards are getting sleepy and coasting by then.) We're not nighthawks by accident. It's more like it's by design. THE BOFH STILL RULEs!

Uh-oh. I said that out loud didn't I?

I just *hate* it when that happens.



 

2977

Living Room / Re: P3005 HP LaserJet printer questions

« Last post by 40hz on August 07, 2013, 04:47 PM »

^Brother had a trade-in deal not too long ago for one of their better all-in-ones. They gave you something like $50 on any printer traded in. Had a client bring in an old dot matrix NEC. They took it.

Save himself $50 plus a trip to the town's electronics recycling center.

HP has an ongoing trade-in program. What's eligible changes periodically so you'll have to check what you have against their list. Link to page here.

2978

General Software Discussion / Re: recommend an app to snapshot & restore a folder? (like version control?)

« Last post by 40hz on August 07, 2013, 04:38 PM »

What's in the folder you're interested in. Docs? Or things like settings and executables?

2979

Living Room / Re: Please help superboyac build a server (2013 edition).

« Last post by 40hz on August 07, 2013, 04:05 PM »

^ Welcome to the world of system administration!

It's not just a job...it's a...well...it's...ah screw it! It's a job.

2980

Living Room / Re: Anti-Tracking Smartphone Pouch

« Last post by 40hz on August 07, 2013, 03:26 PM »

Wonder if it actually does work as well as claimed? I don't think they've had any independent confirmation of their claims - but I could be wrong.

Of course since the NSA can easily monitor who supported the kickstarter and got one - plus who buys one once they become commercially available (ain't debit and credit cards a grand thing?), it's kinda moot. Besides, any phone that regularly drops off the grid and can't be reached by a backchannel ping - and then pops back for no apparent reason - becomes a dead giveaway that the owner is employing some shielding mechanism.

That should be enough to get you on a list of phone owners targeted for 'heightened' scrutiny...

That's the insidious part what's going on. It's not a technical fix we need. We need to address and deal with the people and power issue here. And get it resolved definitively. Otherwise it becomes a game of "whack-a-mole" as somebody characterized it. It'll never end if we only try to deal with the technology and not the attitudes and motivations behind this government's blanket and effectively unsupervised surveillance agenda.

2981

Living Room / Re: Please help superboyac build a server (2013 edition).

« Last post by 40hz on August 07, 2013, 03:14 PM »

I haven't been able to find much information about FreeNAS 9 or 9.1, especially regarding the drive pooling features.  Got anything to read or watch for that?

-superboyac (August 06, 2013, 04:54 PM)

Sorry I missed your question earlier.

Downloadable docs for all current versions of FreeNAS can be found on this page. Manual in PDF format for 9.1.0 can be directly downloaded here. The ZFS pooling info starts on page 111.

Can't comment at this point because it's a brand new version of FreeNAS and I haven't got any hands-on with this version. And I'm not sure I really would be able to say much since this 20 drive Leviathan server you're building will have more drives under unified management than anything I've ever worked with. Biggest I've ever done is 4 drives with ZFS. It's worked really well for me so far.

But remember, with servers - especially storage servers - you're in it for the long game. So it isn't until you hit the 5-year mark and successfully recover from your first few hardware crises that you can realistically say: "This is good. It works."

Look at what happened with Backblaze once a few of their mondo storage servers started experiencing real loads and time frames. Intermittent 'bad surprises' cropped up with some people's data even though Backblaze's techs do know what they're doing.

Like the man says, "It ain't over till it's over."

And with this stuff, it's never really over.

2982

Living Room / Re: P3005 HP LaserJet printer questions

« Last post by 40hz on August 07, 2013, 01:07 PM »

They're great printers, but a bit much for Techidaves print volume as if the cartridge gets too old (recommended shelf life is 1 year) the seals will go and dump all the toner into the printer in one shot. And it's not the kind of mess you can scrape off the Teflon roller in the fuser...so plan on kissing that goodbye too.

-Stoic Joker (August 07, 2013, 11:57 AM)

Yep. Just had that happen recently with my beloved personal 4150N. I've been trying to see if I can get it cleaned out as kind of a hobby project when I'm feeling mechanical. Doesn't look too promising.

2983

Living Room / Re: New bill upgrades unauthorized streaming to a felony

« Last post by 40hz on August 07, 2013, 01:02 PM »

Any questions about how fascism works?

-Renegade (August 07, 2013, 12:17 PM)

Just two:

1. How late are they open?
2. How far away are they from midtown

(with apologies to Woody Allen)

 

2984

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Autographed Paperback copies of Kyrathaba Rising novel available

« Last post by 40hz on August 07, 2013, 07:24 AM »

Please put me down for a copy if it's not to late.

2985

Living Room / Re: save and upload

« Last post by 40hz on August 07, 2013, 07:21 AM »

oh, I want it for personal use!

-kalos (August 07, 2013, 06:40 AM)

From their site's copyright notice, they seem to draw a distinction between documents which they do allow to be copied for personal use, and everything else they have up on their site which may not be copied without their express permission. See below:

Permission to use documents such as white papers, press releases, data sheets, etc. from this Web site is granted, provided that (i) the copyright notice below and this permission notice appear on each use of such documents; (ii) such use is for informational and non-commercial or personal purposes only; and (iii) documents are not copied or posted on any network computer or broadcast in any media. No modifications of any Information is permitted. Use for any other purpose is expressly prohibited by law. Documents specified above do not include the design or layout of the www.quintiles.com Web site or any other Quintiles owned, operated, licensed or controlled site. Elements of Quintiles Web sites are protected by trade dress and other laws and may not be copied or imitated in whole or in part. No logo, graphic, sound or image from any Quintiles Web site may be copied or retransmitted unless expressly permitted by Quintiles.

Also, the fact they don't have an obvious way to download the presentations your link points to seems to be a pretty strong indication they don't want people downloading them. Or so it seems to me.
 

2986

Living Room / Re: save and upload

« Last post by 40hz on August 07, 2013, 06:29 AM »

Elements of Quintiles Web sites are protected by trade dress and other laws and may not be copied or imitated in whole or in part. No logo, graphic, sound or image from any Quintiles Web site may be copied or retransmitted unless expressly permitted by Quintiles.

2987

Living Room / Re: PLease help superboyac build a server (2013 edition).

« Last post by 40hz on August 06, 2013, 03:45 PM »

@SB - that second quote sounds like either somebody shilling for Microsoft, or somebody who doesn't know much about Linux other than what they've seen in non-specialist web articles.

The mount point argument being made is incorrect, misinformed, and outdated. Red herring. It can be ignored.

ZFS is very "production ready" although there are poor implementations of it out there. Best to find a distro that officially supports it as one of their filesystems if you want to use it. Btrfs is still in heavy enough development that I wouldn't consider it for anything really big and/or critical at this point...

Regarding Darkleech - I suppose that could be a danger in some areas. But if you're not running an Apache server on the box in question it can't affect you. Smart money also seems to indicate the attack vector is through outdated or insecure copies of Plesk or cPanel since the exploit needs to gain root access to the server in order to do it's dirty deed. Unless you're planning to run a public facing webserver, I wouldn't worry about Darkleech too much. It's more a hosting service provider problem revolving around sloppy configurations plus them not keeping up with security patches since that's mostly who has been targeted.
 

2988

Living Room / Re: PLease help superboyac build a server (2013 edition).

« Last post by 40hz on August 06, 2013, 03:21 PM »

There's a variant of disk pooling available with Server 2012.

-Stoic Joker (August 06, 2013, 12:04 PM)

Yes indeed. But that puppy is an entirely different breed of tech from what they had in WHS.

I've never done anything with pooling in a Windows server production environment. But I did get some (brief) hands-on with it in a lab setting. Looked impressive. But that's one of those things you need to have up long-term before  you can say for real how well it works in contrast to something like tossing VMs back and forth. With that, you have immediate feedback if something isn't what they say it is.

-40hz (August 06, 2013, 12:59 PM)

Indeed, time will tell as they say. But with SB's desire for flexible access to...stuff. It sounds right down his alley ... Assuming he doesn't decide to go the Linux route. I just thought it best to clarify before preclusively eliminating an option.

-Stoic Joker (August 06, 2013, 03:02 PM)

Actually, if you're most comfortable with Windows and don't really feel like putting the time into getting over the learning curve on an entirely new OS environment, there's no intrinsic need to look at Linux except maybe to save some significant money and more fully own your server.

I'd definitely be inclined to download a trial copy of a Windows server and give it a try with a project like this one.

One catch would be the hardware compatibility issue. It's important to remember that if your chosen devices aren't on Microsoft's list, they'll make no representations about them working correctly (or remaining stable) when used with their server software.

I've never encountered any real systemic faults with MS Server. Truth is, with Windows Server, most problems I've run into were caused by either a bad initial setup, or by somebody messing with things they were warned were best left alone.

-40hz (August 06, 2013, 12:59 PM)

But, I love stupid people ... They pay for my house!

-Stoic Joker (August 06, 2013, 03:02 PM)

Don't know about love - but yeah...I'm somewhat dependent on their mistakes and lack of knowledge for my own income too.

2989

Living Room / Re: HTTPS Hackable In 30 Seconds: DHS Alert

« Last post by 40hz on August 06, 2013, 01:09 PM »

DHS issued an alert?

All of a sudden these guys are working for us again? What's up with that?

2990

Living Room / Re: PLease help superboyac build a server (2013 edition).

« Last post by 40hz on August 06, 2013, 12:59 PM »

There's a variant of disk pooling available with Server 2012.

-Stoic Joker (August 06, 2013, 12:04 PM)

Yes indeed. But that puppy is an entirely different breed of tech from what they had in WHS.

I've never done anything with pooling in a Windows server production environment. But I did get some (brief) hands-on with it in a lab setting. Looked impressive. But that's one of those things you need to have up long-term before  you can say for real how well it works in contrast to something like tossing VMs back and forth. With that, you have immediate feedback if something isn't what they say it is.

I'd have no problem implementing Microsoft's pooling capabilities however, if I were anyplace that would benefit from it. Microsoft's mainline server technology is rock solid. As good - or better - than anything else that's out there in the situations it's intended for.

I've never encountered any real systemic faults with MS Server. Truth is, with Windows Server, most problems I've run into were caused by either a bad initial setup, or by somebody messing with things they were warned were best left alone.

If you follow the directions (RTFM is particularly appropriate advice when doing up a server)  and observe what Microsoft considers to be 'best practices' whenever deploying one of their server products, they really are extremely capable and (mostly) worry free. Windows servers that are correctly provisioned (hardware-wise) and which get set up "by the book," offer years of virtually flawless performance. And with minimal management or maintenance.

One of the reasons I tend to be so hard on Microsoft is because I know what levels of technical excellence they're capable of achieving. So if I'm more critical of what they do than some other companies, it's because I do respect them. And I also expect more of them because of it.

2991

Living Room / Re: PLease help superboyac build a server (2013 edition).

« Last post by 40hz on August 06, 2013, 08:26 AM »

Is that for the WHS version, the new version, or both? I've never had occasion to play with it ... But I've got all my VMs on an 8 disk hardware RAID5 array.

-Stoic Joker (August 05, 2013, 10:31 PM)

It was for the WHS version.

-wraith808 (August 05, 2013, 11:29 PM)

Ah! Okay. I remember that debacle. But supposedly they got that all fixed...supposedly... They were pitching it as the best thing since sliced bread at the last MS show I went to. Guess we'll have to wait for 40 to chime in on the clarification then. Thanks.

-Stoic Joker (August 06, 2013, 06:43 AM)

The first iterations worked ok as long as you didn't push it too much. Then something went terribly wrong a few updates later. Microsoft 'fixed' it by the simple expedient of removing the drive pooling feature from WHS.


But it's kinda moot now. Unless I missed something WHS has been officially discontinued. Microsoft is suggesting its very stripped down "Windows Server Essentials" server as the replacement.

However, with the advent of its cloud services iniative, I don't expect Microsoft to do anything to bring back WHS. Their attitude seems to be that most file and streaming media servers really belong up in the cloud. Ideally the Microsoft cloud, where Ballmer will be be happy to rent you as much storage space as you'll ever need. All major credit cards accepted!

2992

Living Room / Re: PLease help superboyac build a server (2013 edition).

« Last post by 40hz on August 06, 2013, 06:38 AM »

Don't like the sound of that last bit.  I guess it is saying, when you run out of space, it's best NOT to try to replace the existing drives with bigger ones, but rather, just add storage.  That is certainly possible with my setup.

-superboyac (August 05, 2013, 08:33 PM)

That's going to be  the case with pretty much anything you choose. Since the drives are pooled (in whatever fashion) pulling out any existing element in the pool which is already holding data will result in similar degradation until the data either gets reconstructed and redistributed to the remaining elements or a new drive gets incorporated into the pool. That's because your system is aware of what drives it has in its pool. If anything happens to them (or you decide to pull and replace one) certain niceties need to be preserved while housekeeping gets performed. So until the system finishes cleaning up, the system will be 'degraded.' And any additional 'surprises' it encounters while doing so could result in data loss. But the same is true of RAID or pooling or any other storage virtualization scheme. The important thing is how many simultaneous surprises the scheme can deal with at a time - and how quickly it can recover and resume full normal operations following them.

If you're really feeling ambitious about all this, take a look at Gluster-FS when you get a chance. There's also a bunch of videos on it up on Youtube.
 

2993

Living Room / Re: BREAKING: Half of TOR sites compromised, including TORMail.

« Last post by 40hz on August 05, 2013, 06:57 PM »

So where is the Mule to blow this all to hell and free us?

-TaoPhoenix (August 05, 2013, 06:48 PM)

Doesn't matter, a few hundred years and we'll be back on track...

-x16wda (August 05, 2013, 06:54 PM)

Yup. When the stars are right and the Great Old Ones return. 

2994

Living Room / Re: BREAKING: Half of TOR sites compromised, including TORMail.

« Last post by 40hz on August 05, 2013, 06:55 PM »

I guess I'm cynical.

I don't see the revelation as an oversight or screw up.

I think a very pointed message is being sent to the cyber-counterculture and digital separatists.

The message is: We own your ass, kiddies. And we can collect on it any time we feel like.

2995

Living Room / Re: PLease help superboyac build a server (2013 edition).

« Last post by 40hz on August 05, 2013, 06:48 PM »

oh yeah...never used the pool feature in Windows server.

But that's only because the servers I spec are purpose built and configured for specific tasks, so the storage configuration in them remains static for their service life. And to date, none of my clients were looking for anything quite as big as what you're planning.

I also tend to veer towards multiple smaller rather than one large server purely to avoid a single point of failure scenario and also to provide some flexibility down the road.

YMMV.  

2996

Living Room / Re: PLease help superboyac build a server (2013 edition).

« Last post by 40hz on August 05, 2013, 06:41 PM »

Before you commit to W2k12 server, be sure to check out the latest version of FreeNAS just out.

2013-08-03   NEW • BSD Release: FreeNAS 9.1.0
   Josh Paetzel has announced the release of FreeNAS 9.1.0, an open-source and BSD-based NAS solution that enables the users to build networked storage devices on a multitude of hardware platforms: "The FreeNAS development team is delighted to announce the general release of FreeNAS 9.1.0. This release offers massive improvements to the usability, extensibility, stability, and performance of FreeNAS. Everything from the web user interface, plugin management system, base operating system, ZFS file system, and even the source control used to manage the project has been substantially improved. With FreeNAS 9.1.0, iXsystems sets a new level of excellence and power in open source storage solutions... The volume creation interface has been completely replaced with a new wizard that assists the user in creating the most ideal storage pool and optimal setup for the number of disks available, also helping those unfamiliar with ZFS to make correct early configuration decisions and avoid painful rebuilds later." Check the full release announcement for more information. The ISO images as well as the PDF documentation are available from the download page (SHA256): FreeNAS-9.1.0-RELEASE-x64.iso (306MB).

This one ain't your granddad's FreeNAS.

2997

Living Room / Re: Apple vs. Samsung Goes NUCLEAR!

« Last post by 40hz on August 05, 2013, 12:10 PM »

Hardly surprising. This won't be the first time a U.S. president has intervened in full executive capacity on something that either went 'against the public interest' - or was simply something the government didn't want to allow to happen.

That is why Apple, Microsoft, the US movie and music industry, and Monsanto's business interests will always be protected by this government, come hell or high water. Just as the US will protect any other key American business if it's in an industry where the US still retains general market dominance.

Such is the way of the world.

Good TechDirt coverage of this one here.

2998

Living Room / Re: BREAKING: Half of TOR sites compromised, including TORMail.

« Last post by 40hz on August 05, 2013, 11:52 AM »

Do you read any alternative media?

-Renegade (August 05, 2013, 09:48 AM)

Seldom. Or at least not deliberately/

I just read. A lot. Of anything I can get my hands on. I'm sort of with Charles Forte who suggested we need to look at everything - and not just throw out the stuff that doesn't fit in with what we either "know" or believe to be possible. "Catalog everything. Then file it away for future review and correlation." he used to say.

Do that long enough and patterns and connections start emerging. Patterns and connections that often get confirmed as being accurate by the events which follow. In time it becomes crystal clear what forces are at work for what ends. After that, it gets very depressing.

So no, I don't consciously seek out alternative reporting. I just read. And I ignore conspiracy theories and simply wait for the wheels within wheels to reveal themselves.

(Note: I got nothing against conspiracy theories per se. It's just that I can spin far more creative and scarier conspiracy theories than any I've ever be told. So if I feel the need for one, I'll just come up with one on my own. )

2999

Living Room / Re: Censorship of an unfavourable product review (Rotolight Anova) on the Internet.

« Last post by 40hz on August 05, 2013, 07:19 AM »

Techdirt and Popehat are both on this story too. Talk about getting a double black eye!

Pretty interesting reading.

3000

Living Room / Re: BREAKING: Half of TOR sites compromised, including TORMail.

« Last post by 40hz on August 05, 2013, 07:14 AM »

Damn you prophet boy.  

-Stoic Joker (August 05, 2013, 06:43 AM)

Not a prophet by any means. Just an avid student of history and human psychology who read The Foundation Trilogy when still a young and highly impressionable child.