Diary of a Network Geek

Yep, Linux-based satellites.
Mainly built using off-the-shelf equipment, too! According to this article on LinuxElectrons.com, the 100kg devices will have room for a 40kg payload and can generate up to 80watts of power for experiments. The satellite OS is a real-time Linux that “…uses CORBA-based object oriented interfaces for subsystems as well as commanding from the ground via the Internet.” In other words, you could control this bad boy via any Internet-connected PC.
This is cool and all, but am I the only one who sees the military/terrorist applications of this? 40kg is a pretty hefty payload, especially if it was all fissionable material. Imagine, if you can be paranoid along with me for a moment, a vast network of these nasty devices that have small cameras and GPS units for positioning and targeting. Now, imagine terrorist cells that just need a web interface, and some privacy to allow for the communication lag time, to unleash them on major cities. Just point and click!
God, I hope someone is regulating their sale and use….

I spent the majority of my day with the pre-sales engineer from Novell today.
And, that was a good thing. I learned a number of things today. (If you’re a non-geek or don’t feel like asking me to translate this into English for you, feel free to skip down to the paragraph break.) First, the bug I reported yesterday was totally false. The problem with Novell’s Open Enterprise Server running on SuSE Linux was that I’m so old school and security conscious. “How’s that?” you ask? Simple, I had a password that started with a dollar sign character. How’s that a problem? Well, it’s like this. The GUI installer takes the information to install eDirectory, Novell’s premier claim to fame, and throws it all at a command-line installer at a hidden console window. Sadly, in bash, the standard Linux shell, when you throw an unescaped “$” at the prompt programatically, it thinks you’re trying to define a string variable. That little misunderstanding throws the command-line eDirectory installer for a loop and it sits there, at its hidden console, prompting for a password and patiently waiting for you to supply it. Then, it misinterprets that and fails. Once the eDirectory install fails, everything afterward, that relies on eDirectory, also fails.
In other words, because I have more admin experience than Novell’s guys in the field and I’m committed to using secure passwords, I found a bug that no one thought to look for EVER BEFORE.

The other thing I learned today is that I know a hell of a lot about all kinds of strange, esoteric, varied and otherwise unrelated computer stuff. And, that is very, very cool.
Now, I’m going to go do something. No, I don’t know what and neither will you. Tomorrow, I’ll post something else. Good night.

It’s been a long week.
And, frankly, next week doesn’t look like it’s going to get any easier. For starters, I’ve been wrestling with this server at work. I mean this has been real Jacob wrestling with the Angel kind of epic battle stuff here. In fact, it was so bad that just today I was looking at returning Novell’s Open Enterprise Server and SuSE Linux in favor of Windows Server 2003. For those of you who know me and know my Novell zealotry, you know how much I would have hated to do that. Thankfully, the guy Novell sent over to help out got me squared away. I think I’ve actually been Novell certified longer than he’s been in the business, but, still, he knew his stuff, so it’s all good.
I’ve been trying to get the server installed for the past two weeks and kept running into strange errors. Well, it turns out to have a really, tiny, picaune thing. Remember some time back I was talking about naming conventions? Turns out it was more important than you could imagine. In the old days, we all used the underscore character in our tree names, as in “CompanyName_Tree”. Now, apparently, no one uses that convention and, as a result, a bug slipped through that kills the install. So, do I get a prize for finding it? Doubtful.
In any case, we managed to convince the boss that we should stick with Linux and OES and that we’d go over the migration tools tomorrow, which is when most of you will be reading this post anyway. So, I’m still going to get those career goals in after all. Woot!

On other fronts, I’ve got at least one, dear, sweet lady crawling all over my site to try and find out all about me. No matter what she finds here, and, yes, I am directing her to put the best possible spin on who I am, it still won’t be me. Not all of me. Not the part of me that people really love. The blog gives information, but, I’m more than the sum of my stories. And, in fact, many stories simply won’t ever see print, here or anywhere else. I have collections of odd, little facts and strange, obtuse skills that simply don’t fit well into a blog. And my humor doesn’t really play well in print, either. It’s all timing with me, and you can’t do timing very well in print. Still, I worry that we’ll be all out of things to talk about by the time we actually connect for coffee. I hope she’s ready to talk about herself!
And, several people have come to me for advice in the past week. Or, I’ve seen a couple of situations that I’d like to advise people about. Thankfully, I’ve shown restraint. Mostly. No one really wants me to give them advice. My advice is rarely well recieved, even if it is dead on. It may be my communication style, but, whatever it is, people sure don’t like hearing my advice. i do try and temper it by starting off with “Well, if I were in your position, I’d…” Doesn’t always work that well. Of course, I never said I made the best choices for myself, either! Still, sometimes it’s just like watching a slow-motion train wreck. You can see it all happening, but what can you do? These folks wouldn’t believe me if I told them the pattern I see in their lives. They’d just get pissed off at me. Of course, it wouldn’t change that I was right or that they knew I was right, but, still…

Well, there’s more, but my brain is all a-whirl with thoughts of my upcoming day, weekend and week that I can’t summon them up. Besides, I have a feeling I’d really irritate someone if I did! Always seems to work that way. So, it’s off to a lonely bed with my faithful companion. G’night.

And, yes, it’s free.
Really, there’s this new, on-line magazine that is totally dedicated to the Open Source movement called O3.
Now, this is fun for me. It might not be your thing, but, hey, look at the title of the blog. This is what I do. I love Linux and the other OpenSource projects that are running around out there. I use GIMP more than any other graphics tool, even ones that I paid for myself. Most of my favorite security tools are Open Source. And, nine times out of ten, all this great software is free.
So, if you don’t know about OpenSource software, go check out the magazine. I mean, c’mon, it’s not like you’re doing anything else on a Friday afternoon at work, right?
Next week, more Geek Pickup Lines!

Lord, what a boring title.
Hmm, come to think of it, it’s not a very exciting update, either. Anyway…
I got the last of my replacement server parts in Monday, got them in place and the bad stuff out again today. Oh, wait, I’m not sure I’ve mentioned that fiasco… Okay, so early last week I got all my server parts in except for my 1 Terabyte drive array, which got lost in shipping. That arrived Friday, but had the wrong cables. So, Friday, I decided to setup what I could anyway, and discovered that the keyboard and integrated trackball was bad. After a series of calls to Dell, they finally ship me the entire monitor/keyboard/rack-tray subsystem, because “that’s just how they come”. Those arrive Monday afternoon. I get them changed out and, basically, give up doing anything useful for the day.
Oh, yeah, the whole time, in between trying to get all the hardware worked out, I’m trying to talk a guy in Louisiana through setting up a “new” computer with an old hard drive. I say “trying” because apparently, this guy couldn’t read the damn screen to tell me what was going on. He kept asking me, “Uh, what’d I do next?” to which I almost always replied, “I don’t know, what does the screen SAY!?” And, apparently, it was so painfully funny that the engineer on the other side of the cubicle wall from me regaled his fellow engineers with the tale, much to their amusement. And, really, the guy in Louisiana was being pretty stupid. Everything he needed to know was right on the screen. But, I digress…
Then, yesterday, it takes me half the day just to figure out why the install can’t find any disk drives. Apparently, while hooking up the drive array, I some how wiped out the config on the two disks in the server itself. I have no idea how, but, wiped they were. And, since figuring that out, I have banged my head against the same module failing to install and configure correctly. Sadly, it’s the main security database the server uses to track everything. (For those in the know, it’s failing on the eDirectory/NDS/LDAP install and config. The modules are there, but the damn thing simply refuses to install a new NDS tree.) So, it’s kind of key to the whole reason we bought Novell’s Open Enterprise Server, instead of just running on Linux. This was not helped, I might add, by the fact that I was not smoking or that the boss stopped by to make clever comments about why I hadn’t figured the damn thing out yet, either.
I have an e-mail in to Novell to try and get some answers. We’ll see how it goes.

As for the other stuff, that messy, sloppy junk I call a personal life, well, it’s just not really going. Not unless you count the Prayer Team meeting last night and the grocery store tonight. So, since I won’t be managing to do my conversion this weekend, either, I’ll head back to the River Oaks Borders in search of True Love Friday night. I figure I’ll give it one more shot on Fridays, then take a week off to lick my wounds and convert my server, and try another night. Suggestions anyone?
Oh, and you’ll notice in deference to the start of my Troubles with Dating posts, I’ve added a new category, named in honor of my new favorite consolation at the Border’s coffee shop, Bavarian Death Cake of Love. So, if y’all are around, look for me. I’ll be the guy in glasses with a goatee, probably trying hard not to look like a stalker, and eating Bavarian Death Cake with a side of Italian Fascism. If you talk to me sweet, I might even buy you a slice! (Not you, boys. You’re on your own.)

So, I spent my evening at the River Oaks Borders Books trying to pick up women.
It did not go well at all. Oh, it started well enough. I wandered around the store and found several books and magazines, but not much in the way of women, or at least, what seemed like single women. I mean, it went like sort of like this in my head:
Oh, she’s interesting…. And with her boyfriend or husband. Nice.
Oh, that one looks nice…. And she’s here with her mother! Doh! Say her mother’s not bad…. And there’s her husband. Great.
So I walked upstairs to the coffee shop and that’s when things took a terrible turn for the worse, if you can imagine that.
“I’ll have a medium of the Italian Roast and, um, a slice of that Bavarian Chocolate Cheesecake.”
“Ah, the cake of death.”
“‘Scuse me?”
“Oh, it’s just that it tastes like genocide.” Then the little, pseudo-beatnik laughed like I should get the joke.
“Not exactly the best way to sell this stuff, you know?” And, I laughed, because, well, c’mon. Genocide? I know it’s Bavarian and all, but, uh, that’s just ridiculous.
“Hey, we make it right here!”
“Yeah, dude, that’s not helping any.” Things did not improve from here.
So, I sat down with my little slice of Bavarian genocide and a steaming cup of Italian Fascism to browse my books and magazines to try and weed out what to buy and what to leave on the table for beatnik boy to clean up. Petty, I know, but, hey, I quit smoking last week, so, cut me some slack. One that went instantly into the Keep pile was The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Dating and Sex. And, yes, the irony of finding that while totally failing at picking up women was not lost on me. I’m sure God was laughing when I picked it up. At least, someone was laughing. About the time I finished my death cake, an interesting lady was walking around the music section. At first, I thought she was someone I was familiar with from the blogoshpere. And, trust me on this, that’s a very, very good thing. As Cartman would say, “Hella hottie”. So, she wanders through and I keep an eye out for her to go introduce myself and, well, wing it. Honestly, it’s just now that I realized I had no where to go after “Hi, my name is Jim and…” Anyway, she starts to head down stairs and I start the same direction, right up until the point that she catches my eye, gets that panicked look and hurries away toward the far end of the store. Yeah, so… At this point, I’ve suddenly become a stalker if I follow her, so I head to the checkout line with my stuff and ask for the book I special ordered, Novell Open Enterprise Server Administrator’s Handbook, SUSE LINUX Edition. (Hey, look at the title of the blog, folks. This is what I do!) Only the girl can’t find it and asks the guy for help. He looks at me and says, “Oh, here this is him. I know his name. He’s a regular and special orders books from us all the time.” First I’m a stalker, now I’m a serial special orderer to the point that the staff know me by freaking NAME. Yeah, the book store is going to be a great place to meet women. Sure, right, great idea.
Right about this time I get the urge to turn around, you know, like someone is looking at me or something. Sure enough, there she is the girl I was going to introduce myself to is back there looking right at me, almost staring, while I checkout. Perfect. Wonderful. Shoot me now, please. Thanks.
So, then I’m driving home up 610 to 290 and listening to Brian Setzer Orchestra, The Ultimate Collection: Recorded Live, which is actually pretty hopping and has me driving a little fast. Of course, the Italian roast helped, too. And, I’m accelerating through traffic and it’s a little close, but I’m all hopped up on disappointment, chocolate and better than average coffee, so I put my V-8 engine with the police transmission on it to the test and slip through a tight gap in traffic. Now, considering some of the things that happened earlier in the week, you’d think I’d be driving more carefully, not less, but, no, that’s just not me.
Oh, and I should mention that work was, well, a little frustrating today, too. So, yeah, a little built up stress, just like the old days.

Man, I could use a smoke. Oh, right, I gave that up. Well, at least I still have the good Scotch. ‘Scuse me while I go self-medicate a bit and catch some sleep. I know it’s been more than ten years since I did this stuff, but, man, getting that first date sure seems hard these days. I think I’ll pour me a double.

I just had my last cigarette.
I sat outside with a cup of coffee and smoked my last cigarette just now. I’m about to leave and get my hair cut, for which I am woefully overdue, and I’ll stop on the way to get gum. Lots and lots of gum, to help me curb the oral craving for a smoke. (That’s item number two on my list of Resolutions, BTW.) Considering the amount of work I’m about to immerse myself into with the server install and conversion, it might not be the best week to stop smoking, but, well, I have to stop sometime.
Last night, I ran out with some friends to a noodle shop that I haven’t tried before. Of course, that meant I over-ate. Again. I always do that in noodle shops, which is going to make Resolution Number Nine a bit more challengeing, but, still, it was good. So, I won’t eat lunch today to make up for it. Tonight, I’ll head out to dinner with folks from church, since I’ve paid all my bills and still have money in my pocket.
Tomorrow morning, I’ll do my Driver’s Safety course via OnDemand, thanks to WheelsInMotion. While all that’s going on, I’m also doing laundry. And, actually, I have a load in right now.
Oh, I also went to Borders last night. I picked up a couple of books my head-shrink reccomended to me, to be added to the ever growing pile of Books To Be Read. As well as getting a book I ordered on Syraic. (That’s a language related to Aramaic, which is probably the language that Jesus spoke. Probably.) Not to mention a couple of magazines on Linux, including one that had a wall chart of handy Linux commands and Open SuSE install CDs. I love that OpenSource stuff! And, I got a couple of CDs, too. Three from the “Local Talent” section, which I’ll review when I listen to them, a collection from The Brian Setzer Orchestra and one from some folks called “Bowling for Soup”, just because they seemed interesting!
Well, I have a lot to do yet today, so, off I go!

Considering what I’m working on this week, it seemed appropriate.
Windows NT had its time. It was good at what it did. It had its place. That place was the early 90’s, not in the twenty-first century. So, while I get ready to gut this server setup I’ve been saddled with and replace it with a shiny, new Linux-based Novell server, contemplate this: Windows Neanderthal Edition.
It’s funny. Laugh. Laugh, damn you, laugh!

Oh, who am I kidding? Go out and have a drink tonight, it’s Friday! Then, laugh.
Update: Next week, more Geek Pickup Lines!

So, some things went well today, and others, not so much.
Virtually all my hardware arrived yesterday and I was able to start getting things setup. Which was good, but not everything went according to plan. For instance, my giant terabyte external drive array is still on a UPS truck somewhere in the greater Houston area. Or so the UPS tracking website tells me. Then, there’s the Novell Open Enterprise Server/SuSE Linux CDs that won’t be arriving. Why? Well, both the salesman and I were surprised to discover that they don’t send the media anymore. Now, it’s a download, which is what they’re doing even as we speak.
Also, there was the left side panel on the half-height rack from Dell that wouldn’t stay on. Any guesses why? Because the underage, third-world welder was overworked that week and the welds on the hooks at the bottom of the panel were extremely substandard and popped. Of course, I could have taken it out to the guys in the shop to get them to weld it quick, but that’s not the point. Dell sold me a fully functional rack that should have had all its parts together. They didn’t send that, so, now, they’re sending a replacement door. I figure it’ll arrive about the time that missing drive array does.
Now, here’s the lemons to lemonade part…
The great, big UPS that was shown on the quote as simply being 120 volts, which should be standard wall power, turned out to have a funky, 30 amp, round, grounded plug. So, I had to con one of the electricians we have on staff to help me out. Turns out he’s going to run a completely new 30 amp circuit just for the server. Which, as you old server monkies know, is just precisely what we should have anyway. Of course, I knew they wouldn’t want to hassle with it, so I totally ignored that and, well, sometimes, God likes me and sends me just enough lemons to make a whole, yummy pitcher of lemonade. Just like today.

So, in short, I’ve had worse days. The server is almost ready to go and the boss still thinks I walk on water. All in all, not bad at all.

No, this is not a euphimistic post.
My new server hardware arrived today. The whole thing, including the half-height rack with the pullout monitor and keyboard. I was also surprised to find that I’d been smart enough to get a server-grade UPS. I thought I’d forgotten that, but, luckily, when I started getting these quotes so many months ago, I’d been smart enough to get that added in. Yea for Jim’s hind-brain-server-ordering-autopilot! Yea!
So, tomorrow, it’s jeans a day early so I can run the cables through the dropped ceiling to where the rack will live. And, it’ll be taking everything out of boxes and getting it into the rack and configured. If I’m lucky, my software will arrive tomorrow. At least, it would be nice to have my Novell Open Enterprise Server and SuSE Linux to install. The backup software, from Syncsort, and the network attached storage devices that I’ll be backing up to would be nice, but they’re not as important as the operating system. I hope, for obvious reasons.
After that’s done, all I have to do is figure out how to migrate everything from the cranky, old Windows NT install and still have all the Windows XP machines and Apples talking to the server. No problem.

I hope.