Diary of a Network Geek

I’m sorry I missed a “fun” link yesterday.

Yesterday was my last day at Loomis, Fargo & Company. It was a bitter-sweet day, I have to admit. I’m glad to be moving on to something that I think will be a much, much better job for me, but I’m really going to miss a lot of the people I used to work with there. It’s sort of ironic, really, that I’m going to miss this place, because when I started, I never planned on staying very long. I always saw this as a place-holder, or stepping-stone, to somewhere else on my way to a better job. It was just something to pay the mortgage while I waited for the market to recover. Well, the market still hasn’t quite recovered, but it’s getting better and I’ve spent about 18 months treading water.
Okay, that’s not quite true. I did learn a lot more about Linux and I got my CompTIA Linux+ certification. I also updated my CNE (Certified Novell Engineer) to version 6.x. I haven’t quite completed my CompTIA Security+ certification, but that’s been mainly due to the upheaval of changing jobs. After I settle in, I’ll start working on that again and bang it out. It is, after all, a single test that will certify me for life. And, of course, I also learned more about Unix in general and the Veritas backup program on Sun Solaris in particular. All of which has been very, very cool.
But, one of the things I was “promised” was that I would be working on more Windows 2000 servers. The plan was to be replacing all the 35+ Novell servers with Win2K servers at all the branches. Well, that never happened due to budgeting problems and a CIO that didn’t understand why remote sites needed servers. (Yeah, I know, I can’t believe it either!) So, what that meant was I did a lot of backup administration and played nursemaid to a bunch of old, cranky Novell Netware servers. Not a great “resume builder”, is it? Well, I didn’t think it was a great use of my CNE either. So, when the rumors of outsourcing started, I started paying closer attention to the job-list e-mails that I got. And, well, the rest is history.
So, I found myself another job, but I also managed to place a friend of mine from the “old days” at Harbor at this position. He’d been out of work for 15 months. It was a pain that I knew all too well and I was very happy to help out a fellow CNE who was down on his luck. Also, this guy used to report to me so I knew he could do the job. It was a really good fit. And, in 90 days, I get a kickback from the recruiter, so it’s all good!

I’m really going to miss working with a great bunch of people, but I really look forward to meeting some new friends and working in a new, challenging environment that will really use my skills.

Could it be true?

Well, according to this article on AustralianIT, that’s just what they’re doing! They’re allegedly opening up their operating system and the technology for their SPARC chip to the OpenSource community.
I’m assuming that they hope to generate more interest and, therefore, sales. Also, I’m sure they’re hoping that making it open will make it easier for programmers to develop new tools and utilities for their OS. More tools equals bigger market. It makes sense, really, but I wonder what it means for the Unix market and the industry…

Novell is getting right on it!

Just a few months ago, Novell bought SuSE, the leading LINUX company in Europe. Well, now they’ve announced that they’re going to be letting loose some new versions of their distro. At least, according to this article on Wired News, they are. Frankly, all I can say is “Horay!!” I really hope Novell follows through on what they’ve started here. I know they have a whole section of their website dedicated to the Novell\Linux intersection.
I really, really like the idea of running Novell products on a Linux kernel. For instance, I can’t think of a better sounding e-mail solution for corporate envrionments than GroupWise on Linux. (Okay, I’m a little biased, but still….) I mean, this just sounds like a bulletproof setup to me. None of the hassles of Exchange/Outlook bugs, exploits, viruses or worms and the reliability of Linux. C’mon, let’s face it, Unix-based servers so very rarely crash that it’s almost a non-issue.
Now, if someone would just offer me a Novell job where they’re starting to use Linux…. Ah, well, a guy can dream, right?

Webmonkey is dead.

Or, at least it’s dying. According to this article on Wired News, almost eight years as the place to go to teach yourself HTML and related web coding, Webmonkey is shutting down. I learned some of my first PERL here, not to mention a lot of what I know about style sheets. Their tutorials made my sad, little web skills what they are today. I still use their reference materials when I’m looking up things like web color codes and special characters, not to mention their very handy Unix cheat sheet.
Well, all good things must come to and end, I suppose. I sure hope my wife puts some of the same kind of usefull information on her section of this website.

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……

So speaks Linus Torvalds.

In this interview on eWeek, Linus Torvalds, the Father of Linux, refutes the claims that SCO has been making, based on the “leaked” code samples. Basically, what he says is that the code in question is really, really old code found in BSD and the “original UNIX” archive made available by Dennis Ritchie. In fact, it looks to be code written by Ken Thompson, the Father of UNIX, himself. (Ritchie is one-half of the team responsible for the C programming language, among other things.) In short, SCO doesn’t seem to have a leg to stand on, unless they’re hiding a bunch of code somewhere.

And, yes, Mr. Torvalds actually said, “They are smoking crack” in response to a question regarding SCO.

Read an interesting post on Slashdot today…

There was an entry about a “Software Survival Kit” on Slashdot that got me thinking. What should go into that kind of thing? Some of the more useful suggestions I saw, and thought of myself, were: a DOS boot disk with CD-ROM support, hard drive repair utilities, a CD-ROM of documentation, and a CD-ROM of drivers. But, of course, a lot of that is subjective and depends on what OS might be encountered. For Windows systems, not only would I have a boot disk, but I’d suggest having a copy of the OS CD-ROM and the latest patches on a second CD-ROM.
For networks, though, it gets a little more complicated. Since I’m a CNE, I’ll use Novell as an example. The latest patches, uncompressed, take up most of a CD-ROM, but are worth having. Also, making a copy of the install and documentation CDs is a good idea, too. (I remember lugging all 50+ floppies to remote sites before it was all on a CD! Yikes!) I also recommend Server Magic for Netware. Also, I recommend the Netware Server Tools, which is free and downloadable from Novell’s website. This one NLM (Netware Loadable Module) gives a server admin all the most necessary command-line tools to work with a Netware server. And, it makes your server feel almost like a UNIX server. Very, very cool. I can’t vouch for how well it works on Netware 6, but it’s great on everything else.

One of the more interesting suggestions was to use F.I.R.E. (Forensic and Incident Response Environment), which, I have to admit, is a new utility for me. The website describes it as a bootable and free recovery and investigation tool. Sounds interesting, so I’ll have to check it out.

The important thing, I think, is to figure this all out long before the recovery toolbox is needed. By the time there’s an emergency, it’s too late. Of course, I’ve been saying for a long time that no one in IT plans well enough. But, what do I know? I’m just a tech.

Well, if you’ve looked at my resume, you know that I’m out of work. In fact, you know that I’ve been out of work since the end of October this past year. So, why, you’re wondering, has it taken so long for me to update the Diary of a Network Geek? Well, mainly, because I’ve been trying to find a job and overcome depression. I’d like to go into details about it, but I’m not quite ready to tear into the crappy company for whom I used to work. At least, not until I find another job. ^_^ I have a funny feeling that the nice folks who might hire me wouldn’t like my attitude toward my last employer, so….
In the mean time, I’ve been playing around with PERL and working on my CCNA certificate. (That’s a Cisco Certified Network Associate, for those of you who were wondering.) And, I probably should update my CNE (Certified Novell Engineer), but I’m not quite willing to do that yet. It’s not cheap and not too many people seem to be looking for CNE’s right now. I guess I should start working on my MCSE (Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer), but I’d rather not if I don’t have to just yet. When I’m done with my CCNA, I’ll probably work on getting the Linux+ certification that came out this past year. At least it would get my foot in the Unix door! Not like I was promised at Kirby…. Whoops. Almost started in on it!
Well, I’ll update more later, but if you’d like to check out what I’ve done in PERL lately, jump to the Amazing IT Title Generator. Or, head over to my other big website, Fantasist.Net That’s what I’ve really been working on lately. Though I have to admit that I don’t have much there yet. The PERL script is under Resources, BTW. It’s a creativity jump-start tool for authors. Enjoy!