Diary of a Network Geek

Well, it looks like my server finally got approved.
Yea! So, yesterday morning, our office in New Orleans is having their third or fourth server space crisis in as many weeks and they start complaining about why they can’t get a new server. Of course, I patiently explain that I’ve been going through this little drive-space two-step for about six months or so here in Houston and we need a server as bad as they do. Well, I guess I said the right things to the right people and suddenly everything is a go. So I scrambled around and ordered a Dell server with 1.5 gig of RAM and 1 TERABYTE of hard drive space. I also ordered SyncSort backup software for Linux/Novell, two 1 terabyte network attached storage devices and a 50 user copy of Novell’s Open Enterprise Server for SuSE Linux. Now, all I have to do is whip together a migration plan. *sigh*
After I get this all converted and what not, I’ll repurpose the old server for the New Orleans office. Sadly this will mean travel to the sweatiest, back-road, industrial armpit outside of New Orleans, but, well, at least it’ll get done. And, I’ll have my OES server on nice, clean, safe, bullet-proof Linux. Of course, that means more geeky/technical writing. And a lot of penguin references.

I lost a reader recently, and I think my lack of geek content is to blame. At least, I have one less subscriber on Bloglines and, while it is possible that someone else has bailed on me, I blame it on a boring, barely technical job. I spend more time hooking up cables for my boss’ KVM switch than I do maintaining anything. In many ways, it has been rather disheartening. Of course, by the time I’m done here, I’ll have some really good things to put on my resume, but, then, I’ve been spinning long, thankless jobs into impressive experience since I started in this business. That Marketing degree comes in handy sometimes. So, in short, I’m looking forward to being a very technical guy for a couple of weeks. I hope I don’t bore my new readers while I geek out, though. Frankly, I really like some of you new ones. And, yes, I really do enjoy having a more female demographic. Really.

Attention:If you are not a professional geek, the following announcements may bore you to tears!
Right, now that it’s just us boys, let’s get down to brass tacks. First, there’s that pesky Windows Meta File vulnerability. It’s been patched. At least, according to this article on AustralianIT, the overlords at Redmond have stepped outside their rigid, lockstep patch routine to address this vulnerability. All I can say is “About time!” Though, this has been a known problem since November, kids. The only difference now is that the media got ahold of this during a slow news week. The vulnerability wasn’t as big a deal as most news sources were making it.
Second, according to Groklaw, SCO has asked to amend their complaint against Novell. Why? Well, the evidence points quite clearly to the fact that Novell hasn’t violated a copyright, but SCO’s revenue model is such that they have to sue someone for something. So, toward that end, they want to change their suit to, essentially, a breach of contract against Novell. All I can say is, why has this been allowed to go on this long? Someone spank McBride and make him apologize for being an ass then let’s just drop this and move along with the rest of the industry. M’kay?

Finally, this is a little more personal. For years, I’ve been hearing about how the mythical “web services” concept is going to save us all tons of work and money. For just as long, I’ve been saying that it’s not going to work. It’s slow, resource intensive and damn hard to implement. Folks, trust me on this, I’ve been with companies that have tried this again and again. It’s a great idea on paper, but it just ‘aint gonna’ work. Now, it seems like people are finally starting to come around. At least, if I’ve read this ad for a TechRepublic webcast on this topic correctly. Why doesn’t anyone listen to me?

Well, I feel better now. Please, resume your Friday and enjoy your weekend.

Well, why not!
Now, I don’t mean a “de facto” standard, but a real, organized, unified standard. In this case, according to News.com, it’s a Linux standardization push. In fact, to get really specific, it the Linux Standard Base Project. These folks are advocating a standard “base” on which all Linux distros build themselves. Not a bad idea, really, to help get things standardized and more interoperative. I mean, when I was working on that Novell Linux-based stuff, a little standardization would have gone a long way.

Well, no kidding!
When I read this article on the Register about Novell using the upcoming, and potentially bug-filled, launch of “Longhorn” Microsoft’s newest Windows operating system as an opportunity to get their Linux desktop into corporate America, my thought was, “Well, DUH!” What else does this reporter think they’ve been doing?! I mean, c’mon, buddy, this isn’t exactlly a secret, you know? Novell has been talking about this for years. Though, I have to admit, this time I think they have a better strategy, and opportunity, than that “genius” idea to buy WordPerfect. Hey, I love WordPerfect, don’t get me wrong, but there’s just no way that suite of software was going to really compete with MS Office.
Of course, I think they’re being a little optimistic, but, hey, Jack’s heart is in the right place. Hopefully, though, this will keep them alive in the market for a couple more years.
Now, iff they can just hold out until I retire…

They’ve been waiting for me.
I can tell that the folks at my company have been waiting for a guy like me to show up. Today, I had three different persona PCs from three different employees in my cube. Mind, I mean three machines that they brought from home to have me look at for them, not machines from the office. Mostly, they just needed to be defragged and have their anti-virus files updated, but, c’mon, three? Obviously, these people have just been waiting for a “real” computer person to show up so that they can get me to do basic maintenance for them. Actually, come to think of it, I need to update my anti-virus signatures myself!
But, that doesn’t mean I have any less work that’s work related, either. Just this morning I was setting up a PC for yet another person from New Orleans. Which is a good thing, I guess, when you consider some of the alternatives. Of course, it would have been nice if they hadn’t promised that same cube to two different people without telling anyone. I was about to try and move his e-mail from the Windows 2000 machine he had in the office to his G4 Powerbook, but then we decided to take a “wait-and-see” stance instead. With all the miscommunication flying back and forth, we thought that was better. The chaos from Katrina has everyone sort of “runnin’ and gunnin'”, if you take my meaning, and that makes things extra challenging sometimes.
So, with all this craziness going on at the office, I find myself asking, “Should I be doing all this for people?” I mean, it’s not really my job, but the folks asking me to do this for them are the top-level managers. Should I be telling them “no”? I’d really rather not do that, since everyone seems to like me and the work I do for them. Granted, I’m not sure that most of them have any idea what I actually do on a day-to-day basis, but still, they seem pleased, so I’d rather not rock the boat.
Oh, and in recent updates, I did finally manage to get the satellite phone working, but now, since it took so long, we’re trying to return one. Not sure if we can do that at this point, but we’re trying. And, I’ve been messing around with all kinds of Windows 2000, NT and XP issues on the network. Getting all the folks from both offices working has been a bit of a challenge. In fact, if not for the DMZ port on my firewall, I’m not sure I could have had the two domains working together, since they’re named the same. I’m sure that would have caused problems if they’d seen each other on the network.
And, I really should be looking more closely at the version of Linux I want to run on that mythical server that I should be getting spec on. I’m leaning toward either Red Hat or SuSE, possibly even SuSE with all the Novell Open Enterprise Server stuff on it. I have to admit, if I were to get good install media, that could be really cool. All the stability and flexibility of Linux with the way cool administration tools from Novell. Those tools are, after all, what they’re known for developing. It’s the best “value added” product for Linux that I’ve seen so far.
Well, I guess I have some time before we’re really ready to do all that, so, while I wait, I’ll probably just read Sams Teach Yourself UNIX System Administration in 24 Hours, so that my skills are sharp when the time comes. But, now, I’m tired, so I think I’ll just go to bed.

That’s Novell’s SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 for the acronym impaired.
Well, I’m evaluating flavors of Linux to replace our antique Windows NT server, in my copious spare time, at work. Of course, my first choice was to go to Novell’s site and download the free demo of SLES 9. It took the better part of a day and night to download the ISOs and burn them, but, again, I did that in the background.
First of all, the install was quite simple and found even the junky, old hardware that I scrounged together for a test machine. Though, I have to admit that I found it rather annoying that I only used three of the six CDs I burned to do the install. And, I only used the third of those because I was installing a SAMBA server to minimize my client-side changes. (Yes, I know to block all SAMBA traffic out to the ‘net. Thanks for worrying about me though.) If I get the time, I’ll go back and try to figure out what was on those last three disks. I figure it was documenation and source-code, mainly, but that’s only a slightly educated guess.
Now, I’ve never actually used SUSE before, so it was a little new to me. Bascially, it’s standard Linux and X-Windows, but what’s installed by default and the assorted management programs are a little different than what I’ve gotten used to on RedHat. But, once I got the hang of YaST, it wasn’t a problem. In fact, reconfiguring the server via YaST was how I got the SAMBA server installed, configured and running. I should point out that I did this all without the benefit of reading any documenation and it still only took me about five minutes. Very easy to use, even for a relativel newbie.
Mostly, it’s what I’ve come to expect from the modern distributions of Linux. It was easy to install, simple to configure, and pretty to look at while doing both. Oh, and on the old PII with 512Meg of RAM, it ran really well. Nice and smooth. I was able to connect to the SAMBA server, map a drive and copy a file without any issues or having to set it up as a PDC or BDC (that’s Primary Domain Controller and Backup Domain Controller, again for the acronym impaired). I haven’t done any security testing against it, but it’s tucked safely behind our new firewall, so I’m not too worried.
The one thing I noticed that I really liked was the fact that you had to enter a password to reboot the machine. In RedHat, at least the RedHat AS 2.1 I used, anyone who had physical access to the server could simply click the reboot button and it would. With SLES 9, after clicking that button, I was prompted for a password. Only after I supplied the root password did the machine actually reboot. Nice feature, that.

So, over all, nothing spectacular, but a good, solid offering from the newest Novell group, SUSE.

ten year old can do it!
Get Microsoft certified, that is. At least, according to this story on SeattlePI.com, that’s all the life experience you’ll need to get certified. Arfa Karim Randhawa from Pakistan is the youngest Microsoft Certified Professional, so far, and she recently composed a poem honoring Bill Gates and his life achievements, which even I have to admit are admirable. Apparently, little Arfa is a very promising programmer, Microsoft certification not withstanding, and had some interesting ideas about self-navigating cars that some of the Microsoft top brass were interested in hearing. And, of course, all the nice publicity of Gates meeting the youngest member of the collective.
Anyway, I’m not sure if this is a statement about how easy it is to get Microsoft certified, just how smart 10-year-old girls are, or how slow the average Windows IT professional is, but it tickled my funny-bone. And, I would like to note that the youngest Novell Certified professional wass 12 when he got certified. Much more challenging.

Man, I hate to admit this…
But, my home network is illin’, yo. I have run Netware at home for years. My firewall has been Bordermanager, because who the heck knows enough about it, besides me and the guys at Novell, to crack it? Yeah, yeah, I know, security through obscurity is a Bad Thing, but sometimes it does work. Anyway, I have one Netware server that crashes hard with the slightest power fluctuation, even with line conditioners in place. Just the littlest bit of power blip makes it shutdown. Not reboot, mind, but shutdown. And, several weeks ago when it did that, the data volume took a dump and never came back. I have no idea how much data I lost there, or how mad my wife is going to be because of the data she lost there, but I don’t think it’s coming back this time.
So, that got me thinking… Why should I stick with Netware? I’m more of a Linux guy now anyway, so maybe it’s time to look into Linux firewalls.
Any suggestions? And, anyone have any suggestions for ways to try and recover that crashed Netware data volume?

I love Dr. Suess, but all he did was inspire the title.
I have two concerns this week: Linux servers and security. I’ve installed a test RedHat server and configured Samba on it, so now I can start testing how the accounting system will run from a mapped Linux drive. And, I’ll be testing the custom, in-house app that gives us our competitive edge. I’ve got server spec to get to the boss, when he’s in the office again, but I’m still waiting on pricing for a Linux-based backup system. It was actually much easier to get setup than I thought it would be. Though security may be an issue, since, essentially, Samba emulates Windows sharing on a Linux platform.
Security is my second issue. There’s a basic firewall in place on the router, but I don’t think that’s enough, especially if we want to block “adult” sites. And, since we do actually have a policy against that sort of thing, we do. So, eventually, I need to get that all spec-ed out and installed, too. And tested. Yeah, a little scan against our outside link would be interesting to look at, especially if I do it before and after. Ah, well, that’s down the line. First, I have to get the server upgraded.
Oh, and I still need to evaluate Novell’s Open Server on Linux before I decide which way to go for an OS on the new server. I know I want to avoid a Microsoft product, if at all possible. Frankly, it looks like it should be a real possibility. It all depends on how testing goes this week, so we’ll see. That and getting a CD burner at the office so I can burn the demo ISOs and install them.
Then, there are all the “little” projects that everyone keeps bringing me, not to mention all the nice G4s and assorted Macintrash… Ah, the work of a one-person IT department is never done. But, somehow, having easily defined goals makes the work more fulfilling. I know where I’m going and how I’m going to get there, so it’s all okay.
(The Suess book, by the way, was One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish and a childhood favorite.)

Looks like I’m going to be a Unix admin!
Yeah, it definately looks like we’ll be using some form of Linux at the new place. If not Novell’s Open Enterprise Server on Linux, then Red Hat Advanced Server. Of course, I’ll end up running SMB as a Windows PDC, for the login scripts, but, hey, at least I can do it! And, it almost sounded like the boss was actually leaning toward Novell’s solution. It actually worked out to be about the same, cost-wise, as Red Hat. Though, the Novell pricing doesn’t include any support if anything went wrong. But, I suppose we could pay by incident. I mean, I hardly ever call Novell anyway these days. Their online knowlegebase has most of the answers I need.
And, of course, there’s all the Mac and OS X stuff, too. That’s BSD, essentially, with a Mac X Windows front end. Funny, it all comes around to that GUI, doesn’t it? All point and click. Oh, for the good, old days when all we had was a command prompt and we were darn lucky when we got that! These kids today don’t have any appreciation for what a good command prompt can do. Why, I remember, back in the “before time”, messing around on an old HP-UX system and figuring out how to read mail from reading the man file! So, here I am, again, back where I started, about to become a Unix admin again.

Cool.