Diary of a Network Geek

I know why the PERL developer cries…

Sometime ago, I wrote an entry about PERL on Netware. At the time, I wondered why no one used PERL for Novell System administration. Now, I know. Novell has virtually no documentation on how PERL interacts with Netware. There are a few, simple example scripts and a couple of suggestions for things to do with it, but that’s about it. How frustrating! Here I am, having actually gotten a little bit of PERL savy and to what end? My favorite server OS supports it, technically, but they offer virtually no information about how to actually make use of it! Argh!

Ah, well, now that they’re getting into the Linux arena maybe we’ll start to see more support for Open Source and “hackerish” tools, like PERL. I sure hope so…

Wow, I’m becoming a Unix admin!

Now, this might not be a big deal for old-time Unix geeks, or anyone who prefers to work with Micro$oft products, but I think it’s cool. Last week, I was wrestling with a little problem that I solved with a judicious application of XWindows.
We run Oracle 9ias at my office and to get it to print graphics we have to do a kludge work-around. Not that we’re special, everyone who runs Oracle 9ias has to do it. What we’ve been doing is using a pair of Windows workstations running a Windows-base X terminal. Well, over the weekend those workstaions locked up and the DBA couldn’t get them restarted without physically rebooting them. So, Wednesday he came to me and told me he wanted a Linux solution to the problem.
After a bit of Googling, I found what I hoped would be the answer, but I didn’t have time until Thursday to try it out. Here’s what I did, in a nutshell:
1. On my Red Hat 9 workstation, I opened a terminal and ran “xhost +”
2. On the Solaris 8 test server running Oracle 9ias, I telnetted in and ran “display=my RedHat 9 workstation IP address:1.0″ and then “export display”
3. Then, still on the 9ias server, I ran”Xterm” and it popped up on my XWindows session on my RedHat workstation!

Woot! So, I know it might not be a big deal to an old Unix hand, but to this old Novell geek, it was pretty cool. Oh, and it works, too. Now, I just have to figure out how to script all that so it runs automagically……

WOW! Talk about a blast from the past!

So, I’m just sittin’ there, minding my own business, trying to look casual while reading e-mail and the boss walks in and starts firing questions about Netware licensing at me. Naturally, I’m suspicious from the start, but I listen and answer questions as best I can.
Not too long ago, we bought a company on the East Coast that had, well, an “interesting” mix of technology in their IT department. It seems a couple of these sites are have problems with the number of licensed connections available. The office has about 30 people, but they only have a 10 user license. Talk about 10lbs. of crap and a 5lbs. bag. But, wait, it gets better!! They’re running, yep, you guessed it, Netware 3.2. Oh, God, what did I do in a past life to deserve this?
Well, wailing and gnashing of teeth aside, I’m gonna’ have to deal with this. Somehow. Without spending any money. Yeah, right.
So, I dig into Uncle Jim’s Magical Bag O’ Tricks™ and pull out not one, but two copies of unserialized server.exe that I had from way, way back by way of a guy who was a developer at a Novell channel partner or some such. (Don’t worry, he’s since turned rogue and been seduced by the Evil Micro$oft Empire, so I’m not getting him in trouble.) But, you know what? The boss says to me, “That just doesn’t sound ‘right’.”
What’s this? A boss who actually cares about doing things the Right Way™ ? Whoda’ thunk it!
So, the work may not always be challenging and the pay can always be better, but at least I have a pretty damn good boss these days. That’s something. Hell, somedays, it’s the only thing.

No, really, an actual gift.

Back in October, you may recall, I wrote about updating my Novell certification. Well, Monday night I got a package from Novell. At first, I thought it was going to be some kind of “Welcome Aboard” kit like they’ve sent in the past. Basically, just a bunch of product literature and ID cards and such. But, this was different. They sent me an actual thank you gift for updating my CNE to version 6. In fact, there was a letter in the box telling me precisely that.
Now, the “gift” itself isn’t that great. It was one of those single-strap, “Metrosexual”-style backpacks, with Novell logos strategically placed all over it. But, it was the idea that they sent me something as a reward for sticking with them during hard times in the tech world. That’s a pretty big shift in thinking from Novell, and every one else who has a certification program. It used to be that they pretty well expected the certification candidate to kiss their butt, even after we put in the work to get the cert. But, now, there seems to be a different attitude, which I welcome.

So, I may not actually use their “gift”, but I appreciate the sentiment behind it.
Thanks, Novell!

Does that mean, Novell servers?

When I read this news story on Forbes.com about how Gateway is going to be selling servers with SUSE Linux on them, it struck me as odd. First of all, Novell just announced that they were going to buy SUSE just a couple of weeks ago. Second, Gateway selling servers? Well, okay. I don’t think I’ve ever run one, but their PCs are okay. Third, just as everyone else seems to be dropping Linux support, SUSE and Gateway are just starting to push it.
Okay, so, I’m no pundit, but this seems a little strange to me. I mean, these guys aren’t neccessarily “top of the line” in the industry, but they’re not light-weights, either! I can’t put my finger on it, but there has to be something going on here that I’m missing. Is there some kind of behind-the-scenes deal going on? Did Novell know about this deal before they made their move? Did Novell orchestrate this deal? And, what the devil will it all mean to the industry? Will it mean anything? I don’t know, but I’ll be watching this as it develops!!

With subpoenas this time, not just FUD.

(That’s Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt, by the way.) Well, according to this article on ZDNet, SCO has filed subpoenas with the U.S. District Court in Utah, targeting Novell; Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux kernel; Richard Stallman of the Free Software Foundation; Stuart Cohen, chief executive of the Open Source Development Labs; and John Horsley, general counsel of Transmeta.
The article said that IBM responded to the Linux-related lawsuit by asking a federal judge to order SCO to identify illegal source code and serving four other companies with subpoenas of its own. Though it wasn’t clear if they filed before or after SCO. In either case, I hope this gets resolved soon. I’m tired of hearing about it and anyone who knows Linux knows that they have no leg to stand on. Oh, well, at least it gets Linux in the news….

Time to brush up your security skills!

And, NMRC, Nomad Mobile Research Centre, is the place to do it. At least, for Novell it is.
Simple Nomad has been around for a long, long time and is one of the few hackers pounding at Novell security to make sure it’s good. He has a great website and killer tools to check your systems with, not to mention recover passwords “lost” by disgruntled former admins. But, lately, he’s also had articles on security and been adding Windoze and Unix security stuff, too. I have to admit, it’s been a little bit since I visited NMRC and I was pleasantly surprised at the progress that’s been made.
If you’re worried about network security, NMRC is a site to add to your list of links!

Wow, this has generated a lot of buzz!

The Linux news sites are burning up with talk about what this will mean to Linux, SUSE, KDE, Gnome, and Novell. The traffic on this is just HUGE. Personally, I think it’ll be good for everyone involved. People aren’t too familiar with Novell, so they don’t know just how good a company it is. I was suprised at how many people didn’t realize that Novell has an enormous cash reserve. These are some pretty frugal guys. And, they’ve always had good products with minimal bugs. So, while I sit here wearing the Gnome “hoof” on my shirt, I smile at the thought of Novell revitalizing themselves with Linux, even if it means that they’ll be supporting the KDE interface.
But, what do I know about this stuff? I mean, I’ve only been Novell certified for over TEN YEARS and been running Linux, in one form or another, for at least four years. Take a look at what the folks at News Forge have to say about it. Or, if you’d like another, more “mainstream” source, check out the article on ZDNet Australia. I think they’ll both back up what I’ve been saying. (I know that ZDNet Australia confirms what I’ve been saying about the CNE for years.)

WOW!

It looks like I did a good thing by getting my Linux+ cert and then also updateing my CNE to version 6. This announcement from Novell came out yesterday afternoon about how Novell is buying the well known German Linux distro packager SUSE. Cool.
Of course, there are some hard-core Linux people who are afraid of another SCO scam, but, based on what I’ve seen of Novell, I doubt that will happen. More likely they’ll just become more like RedHat. Of course, considering RedHat’s new support policy, that may not be the best thing. Still, it’s nice to see Linux grow up and enter the enterprise big-time. And, hopefully, this will keep Novell competitive. Hell, I just hope it keeps them alive!
In any case, I’m sure this will be all over the geek news, so I’ll keep an eye on it.

But, that was what happened.

I took my CNE 5 to 6 Update test today, and failed. Just barely, but still, I failed. I was just too stressed out about not haveing the money to take the test again, which I really can scrape together. And, I was worried about a recurring plumbing issue that I’m having a hard time resolving. I’ll give it one more shot before I call a plumber.
In the mean time, I’ve updated my Self Test Software quiz engine and tests for Novell’s 5 to 6 update. And, I’ll start studying again. I need to really bust my butt on this, though, because I only have until the end of October to get this done. *sigh* It’s gonna’ be a long month.