Diary of a Network Geek

I have lots of hope for the new year.

No, seriously, I do!
We, as a race, the human race, are capable of amazing things.  We live in the future.  Our lives are filled with science-fiction, which has always been the language of wonder and hope, even when it’s filled with warnings about where we may go wrong.  But, now, right now, we have people who live, albeit in a limited way, in space.  And that, gentle readers, has always inspired hope in me.
Here’s a link to some beautiful photographs which inspire that hope in me, courtesy of NASA and brought to you via Yahoo: Astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson looks down at Earth.

I hope you have a new year filled with wonder and hope, people.  Truly I do.  Be good to each other this year, okay?

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"People may doubt what you say, but they believe what you do."

Yeah, yeah, happy New Year to you you, too, now, go change your passwords.

No, seriously, change your passwords.  Think about how long it’s been since  you either setup that account or changed the password on it.  Now, consider that there have been some significant security breaches in the past year, including the issues at Gawker and their family of popular websites, and think about how many places you’ve used that same password.  It’s your favorite one, right?  The one you use for all your accounts, because it’s so, so easy to remember?  Guess what, it’s also probably easy to crack and is probably in a database on some hacker/cracker website right now matched up with the e-mail address you used, too.  How long will it be, do you suppose, before someone gets into all your accounts?

Right.
So, go change your passwords.
Not sure how to pick a good one?  Well, if you trust the U.S. Government for security, you can go to their Computer Emergency Readiness Team (aka US-CERT) for advice on choosing a secure password.  If you’re like me, though, you categorically do NOT trust a government agency for your personal security, in which case I recommend that you check out premier security expert Bruce Schneier’s advice for picking a secure password.

I’ll offer two bits of advice on the topic.
First, if any system lets you, choose a password that includes numbers and special characters, not just letters.  The example I always use is “@2brutus”  And, yes, that means I will NEVER again use that as a password. *sigh*  I like to substitute numbers for letters which resemble them, like the number one instead of the letter L or the letter I.  In the example, I’ve taken a  whole word out “et” and substituted the “at” symbol, or “@”.
Secondly, try to use something that is not a single word, but a phrase.  Again, in the example, I took my bastardization of “et tu brute”, which I remembered as “et tu brutus” and mashed it up a bit.  I have known people who use short sentences, however.  One guy I worked with occasionally used lines from Lewis Carroll’s [amazon_link id=”0810911507″ target=”_blank” ]Jaberwocky[/amazon_link], which adds the extra security of words that will most likely never be found in any standard dictionary of any language.

So, trust me on this, if you haven’t done it, start the new year right and change your passwords.

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"The weakness of men is their facade of strength; the strength of women is their facade of weakness."
   --Warren Farrell

Wow, my High School English teachers would kill me for letting that participle dangle like that.

Good thing I went into IT, I guess, isn’t it?
But, I still love to write, as I think is evidenced by this blog.  And, I love Linux and open source software, too.  So, what could be better than combining those two things?
As it turns out, nothing.  So, here are some Linux and open source tools to help you write the next Great American Novel, brought to you by Linux Journal.

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"Life lived for tomorrow will always be just a day away from being realized."
   --Leo Buscaglia

It’s a dangerous digital world out there!

As I’m sure you’ve seen this year, there have been lots of warnings about increased malicious activity.  Everything from phishing to new malware, the cyber-criminals are really working overtime to make your life a living hell.  There’s plenty you can do to stay safe, like only going to sites that you know and not opening attachments from strangers, or even from friends that don’t normally send you attachments.  But, let’s face it, sometimes, things slip by you.  So, what else can you do, especially when you don’t have money to spend on high-end security tools?

Well, check out eWeek’s list of 9 Free Security Tools to be Thankful for and start using them.  At least make sure you have some kind of anti-virus installed.  There are several suggestions on that list.
And, be careful out there!

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"If God is for us, who can be against us?"
   --Romans 8:31 (NIV)

My first tattoo is officially old enough to drink today.

I got my first tattoo on my twenty-first birthday, twenty-one years ago, today.  It was Finals Week and I had a final exam the next morning, so I couldn’t do the traditional round of drinking myself unconscious.  Besides, that really wasn’t my style even then.  So, instead, I marked the day my own way.  I’d wanted a tattoo for a long time, longer, in fact, than I could remember.  And, somehow, I’d gotten it in my head that having a tattoo would make me tough, or at least, make me seem tougher.  I’m not sure that it did, especially considering that I hid it from my family for another six months.  Not very manly behavior, is it, being too scared to show off my big, tough, tattoo?

But, that’s who I was, twenty-one years ago.
I was a kid who was getting close to graduation, but didn’t know who he was.  That feeling of not being enough, not knowing enough, not having enough direction, would send me rushing headlong through life at break-neck speed, never slowing down enough to appreciate what I was seeing, or hearing or doing.  It led me to do many things that, in retrospect, I’m not particularly proud of having done.  Choices I would sometimes rahter I had not made.  I don’t regret the tattoo, though, only the original motivation that led me to get it.
I’m not really that man today.

Twenty-one years is a lifetime.
Time enough to change.  Since getting that tattoo, I’ve cheated death, more than once, and I don’t just mean the cancer three years ago.  I’ve faced a number of reversals of fortune, both in my favor and not.  But, I think, more importantly, is that I’ve learned I’m not my circumstances.  Who I am and how I am are both defined by the choices I make.
Today, though, I make much better choices than I did twenty-one years ago.  Not always, but, mostly.

And, of course, my birthday wouldn’t be complete if I didn’t mention all the other famous people who had the good luck to be born on this particular day. Famous people like Frank “Chairman of the Board” Sinatra, Jennifer Connelly, Bob Barker, Gustave Flaubert, author of Madame Bovary, Edvard Munch, and Wells Fargo founder, Henry Wells. Not to mention, Mike Pinder of the Moody Blues, Tim Hauser of Manhattan Transfer, Dickey Betts of the Allman Bros, jazz musician Grover Washington Jr, and former mayor of New York City, Ed Koch.
All heady company to be sure, but for whatever reason, it tickles me the most that I share a birthday with Frank Sinatra. I guess it’s because he was such a unique and original character who really fought against and beat some long odds to become an amazingly famous, generally well thought of character. I can only hope to do the same, one day.

So, I don’t know what the coming year will bring, but I know I’ll be in a different place than I am today.
Which is, of course, what I said last year!  But, this year, right now, it feels like things are changing and about to change far more than I thought possible last year.  I don’t know where the coming year will take me, but I’m sure it will be to places, inside and out, that I never would have suspected possible a year ago.
And, for that, I’m very thankful!

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"When the only tool in your toolbox is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail."

It’s almost the end of the year and most people are wrapping up projects and thinking about how they’re going to squeeze in their last vacation days.

But, not if you’re in IT.
No, if you’re one of the over-worked, under-paid technology “elite” in the corporate world, you’re working harder than ever right now.  While everyone else is taking time off, you, like me, are trying to get all the system maintenance done that requires everyone else to be off your systems.   Well, while you’re waiting for them to get out of the office so you can start your work, here are some things to think about.

When was the last time you had to restore a backup?  Have you ever even tried to restore any files from those backups that you worked so hard to get running right when you setup your servers?  Well, now is the time to try it.  Trust me on this, but you don’t know how good your backup is until you try to restore.  Now, you may not be able to do a full server restore on fresh hardware, but, if you can, do it.  That’s the only true test of your disaster recovery plan.  Barring that, though, at least try to restore some files from random places on the server, just as a check to make sure it works.

And, while we’re talking about backups, how is your off-site rotation working?  If you’re in a large company, you probably have a long-standing system for rotating backups off-site in case of a massive disaster, but many smaller companies don’t.  Generally, what I suggest to people is that there should be one full backup off-site, one coming back or leaving, and one on-site.  The most current, usually, should rotate off-site just after completion and be off-site for two weeks, or, really, off-site for one week and coming back on the second.  There are plenty of  services to do this, but even just taking them to the network manager’s house is better than nothing.  Just somewhere relatively secure that’s not the same as the site you’re backing up, just in case the entire building catches fire or is demolished in a hurricane.  You get the idea.

Now, something else to consider, if you run Windows Server is Active Directory.
Mostly, your backup program should be taking care of this, but sometimes funky change creeps in when you don’t expect it.  Back in the days when I was more than an IT department of one, I was a big believer in getting baselines.  Every once in a while, it’s nice to take a snapshot of what’s working so that when it inevitably breaks, you can see what might have changed to break it.  This is especially true of things like Active Directory.  Every year, AD gets more and more complicated and, as your network grows, your individual AD tree will get more complicated, too.  Now, assuming that things are running well, is a great time to take a snapshot of your AD tree for a baseline to use in the coming year.
Tech Republic has a good article on how to use a free tool from Sysinternals to do just that.  Check it out.

And, for those of you who don’t have an IT department, or are a sole-proprietor, don’t think you can just slide, either.
Chances are your clients are taking more time off and you’ll have some down-time, too, so now is the perfect time to review your backup plans.  Many of you may not have much of a plan, or much of a budget to get something working for you.  Well, don’t worry, Tech Republic has some creative suggestions for backups to fit most situations. Do yourself a favor and go check them out now.  Then actually implement one before the start of the new year.  Do it now, before you need to restore data from a crash.

Trust me.  Make sure your backups are running before you need them.  You’ll thank me later.

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"It's nothing against you to fall down flat, but to lie there--that's disgrace."
   --Edmund Vance Cooke

Been spending big on the holidays?

Today, the day after Thanksgiving, traditionally known as “Black Friday” because it’s when retailers get out of the “red” and start really turning profits for the year, is when a lot of people do their Christmas shopping.  But, today, I’m going to share something else with you, instead of the traditional Black Friday sales.
Gentle readers, I, too, have worshiped at the altar of plastic and run up huge debt.  Granted, my ex-wife helped me with that and so did my medical debt, but, still, the bulk of the responsibility is with me.  Today, I plan on not buying anything, but, rather, enjoying the things I have.  My Christmas shopping can wait another couple days, what I haven’t done already, that is.  And, yes, I’m trying to spend less and, more importantly, debt less, though, I admit I find it difficult to stop entirely.  It’s a bad habit, to be sure.   Of course, I do pretty well, so I’m impacted only a little by my huge debt.  And, it’s just me that’s effected these days.  I don’t have a family I’m weighing down with my remaining debt.

But, it’s not that way for everyone.  Some people have really big problems with debt.  Bigger than my problems.  For them, though, there is hop.  There are solutions.  And, today, as most of America wallows in the excess, that’s what I’m bringing to you.  It’s only one alternative, but, I hope it becomes a growing trend.
It’s a website called Creditable and it’s a site designed to help you get out of that crushing debt, anonymously and free.

And, either way, whether you need this or not, enjoy today and be thankful for what you have.

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"Hope is the feeling you have that the feeling you have isn't permanent."
   --Jean Kerr

So, I promised you more technical stuff here, right?

Well, stop yer grinin’ and grab yer linen, ’cause here come a fist full of links with some great advice for network administrators, all from TechRepublic:
First, if you’re a real network admin, you’ve dealt with traffic issues on file servers.  Issues that have hidden sources.  Unknown processes that jam up your network connections until your users scream for your head.  So, how do you deal with that when you’re on a budget and don’t have a lot of tools?  Well, one way is to use “netstat” to look at what process is running on what port and sending what volume of data.  If you’re on Unix, you probably already know about this tool, but if you’re on Windows, check out “Netstat tips and tricks for Windows admins“.  It may save your bacon one day.

Second, you probably have wireless in your network now, too, right?  But, it may not always work quite the way you want.  Once again, users will scream bloody murder if they can’t read their blogs on their iPhone, so, how do you find out what’s jamming up your WIFI network so that no one can connect?  Read through “Troubleshooting for wireless connectivity issues” to get you started on running down the problem.

Thirdly, if you’re a REAL network administrator, you probably have at least one Linux box in your network.  Something that runs an open source network inventory or monitoring tool or, maybe even, an actual Linux file server.  In any case, sooner or later, even that sad, little, neglected Linux box will have disk space issues, so here are “10 things you can do when the drive on your Linux box is full“.

And, finally, my personal favorite.  You hear a lot of buzzwords floating around these days in IT shops, but “the cloud” is the most common magic cure for all ills.  Personally, I’m not so sure.  I worry about things like, oh, you know, security and auditing and connectivity issues and little details like that which seem like they might be an issue for the magic cloud computing panacea.  Turns out, I’m not the only one.  So, go see why Patrick Gray says “The cloud doesn’t matter“.

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction."
   --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

So, with all the posts in the past couple weeks about the end of the world, I thought I should share some things about shelters.

No, seriously.
So, here’s a link to an article Wired ran on the latest and greatest disaster shelters.  And, yes, they’re called “disaster survival shelters” now, because we worry about more than fallout.  They’re not cheap, incidentally, but buying one will help pay taxes here in Texas, so I think you should buy one.  Also, they have the advantage of being private.  You get to stock it with whatever, and whoever, you think you need to survive the coming apocalypse.
On the other hand, if you’d prefer a more upscale solution, you can buy space in the Terra Vivos underground community.  Again, not kidding about this.  Discussed quite extensively on Boing Boing, this guy is selling what amount to doomsday timeshares.  Could be snake oil, or the smartest deal since the end of the Cold War.  You’ve got about a 50/50 shot of guessing right.

Of course, you could do what they did in the ’60’s and build your own!

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"Between saying and doing many a pair of shoes is worn out."
   --Italian Proverb

But, slow is fast.

I’m not sure where I heard that first, but boy is it true.
I’ve never served in the military, but I used to hang out with a lot of guys who did and, frankly, were pretty intense about it, when I was younger.  And, yes, I do love me some action movies with big guns blazing, so there’s no telling where I picked up that little bit of military wisdom.  I tend to associate it with BUD/S training, which is better known to the general public as the SEAL program.  In essence, the idea is this; the faster you try to rush something along, the more mistakes you make and the longer it takes to actually achieve your goal.  But, it also has some other connotations.  The one that I forgot to take to heart this past week was to not let circumstances rush me into doing a sloppy job.

This past week I was supposed to get a new server installed and configured for a sister company.  It’s a startup, really, so there’s not an existing network, which means I’m basically setting everything up from scratch.  Now, in some ways, this makes things easier.  I don’t have to worry about conflicts as much, for instance.  I mean, however I configure the first equipment will determine the entire network configuration.  Whatever naming conventions I set will be carried forward.  I’m working with a blank slate.
But, that blank slate has its disadvantages, too.  As an example, there is NO infrastructure in place at all.  So, not only do I have to setup the server, but also the switches, the firewall, and even the rack and UPS that will hold it all!  Luckily, I didn’t have to run the actual cable, but, pretty much everything else will be something I install myself.  Not that it’s all bad to do it myself, either, because I don’t have to worry about someone else doing it the wrong way or undoing something I’ve already done.  But, it does all take time.

Again, I’ve done this before.  Not only have I been a “department of one”, as it were, but I’ve setup networks from scratch for years.  I’ve been doing this since 1992, so, for the past 18 years, I’ve networked all kinds of crazy things together.  And, some of that was back in the old days before Windows clients and GUI interfaces made it all work together right out of the box!  Still, I forget things sometimes.
I forget that I should get help racking servers, for instance.  Getting the weight up into the rack isn’t so difficult, but doing that and getting those damn little pins into the recessed slots on the rails at the same time can prove challenging.  I should know that.  But, this week, giving into the pressures from end-users at a startup, I tried to rush things.  What ended up happening was me losing my grip on a server and twisting a rail all out of shape.  Luckily, I never throw out spares and I had another set of rails that I could use as a replacement.  And, the second time around, I was smart enough to get help to rack that server.  And the APC SMART-UPS 5000VA UPS that weighs in at about 130 pounds and has sharp edges.  With that help, nothing else got out of hand and I didn’t have to replace any more rails.
Of course, when I went to set everything up, it turned out to have the wrong power adapters to plug my servers into.  Why?  Because I was in a hurry and didn’t double-check the specs and trusted that someone else would do their job right.  So, now, @Dellcares on Twitter, who heard my rage at having the wrong UPS, is helping me get things straight.

Did I get the server installed?  Well, yes, I plugged directly into the wall long enough to setup and configure the server to meet my deadline for next week, but, I struggled with one of my most basic character defects first; sometimes, I just need to ask for help.
Of course, I also lost sight of one of the most basic principles of IT, which seems so counter-intuitive in such a fast-paced industry:
Fast is slow; Slow is fast!

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go."