You may not be worth this reply, however, I will try to overcome my Unixism.
"It can scarcely be denied that the supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience." - Albert Einstein
I don't mean to quote and sound all guru-ish, however, this particular quote has a deep meaning with regard to this discussion.
"Shits tough, you have to be tough too." - I think I invented that one.
Basically, if you can't swim then get out of the water, or learn to swim; those are your only choices.
Stuff like networking is zen, it's just bits on a wire. On the other hand, it can be hard. Waah.
Dear Timothy,
You should try rummaging through some/.ers' trash, you might get lucky and inherit a real computer for you to complain about...
Regards,
Linux
First, they didn't break 911, they somewhat broke E911. Subtle but important difference. there's 52 LMUs down, which means they can't trilaterate the position of 911 callers from Cell phones on the AT&T network in that area. It's probably a much bigger deal that several cell sites are unavailable. Lets just hope no ones life depends on it.
"had little to no effect on the health of people"
on
Three Mile Island Memories
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Elizabethtown College - about 7 miles from TMI as the crow flies (or the wind blows).
My sister went to school there, and after two and a half semesters there she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer.
Lets rewind... The morning of the accident people reported a metallic taste in the air. Turns out that of the gas released, radioactive iodine accounted for an estimated "8 - 12% of the total gases released, implying a minimum of 1 million iodine curies". See: TMI Accident.
I don't believe that people were not harmed by the radioactive release. In fact, stating that it "had little to no effect on the health of people" is a lie. Any arguments based on that lie are faulty.
I am for nuclear power, and I agree that letting bean counters manage a project like that is the wrong way. I'm in agreement with all of the other people here who think that engineers should be listened to. They are the ones with the knowledge after all...
Ever had the pleasure of dealing with one of these pieces of garbage?
Not that Cisco doesn't have problems (FWIW, I admin a fair sized Cisco network), but MikroTik routers give me a feeling in my gut that it's just about to break, any minute now... I could build a better router out of a PC and some NICs (and have - love OpenBSD)...
Disclaimer: my experience with MikroTik is from dealing with a particular Indian Contracting firm that uses them, and they also happen to have incompetent admins (willing to give me admin on their boxes to fix their problems - told 'em to deal with their own gear)... Maybe that's a commonality between MicroTik users?
Sounds like STP was configured poorly and you had a switching loop. I've seen it happen where one switch is configured wrong and make another switch's CPU peg, especially if the other switch decided to advertise itself as the root bridge and it didn't make sense.
I haven't tried Ubuntu on our SAN yet, but I have a few Solaris boxes, and several Linux machines (CentOS 4 & 5) on our SAN which consists of an HP Storage array, and another Sun (StorageTek) storage array, both connected via redundant Brocade FC switches. Both contain multiple trays of 2Gb/s FC disks, and we've got probably 35-40 TB on those two, plus on another older SAN (Procomm hardware) providing about another 14TB I think...
CentOS works pretty well on the HP SAN, but not well on the Sun SAN. Supposedly we can do a firmware upgrade on the Sun RAID controllers to address the linux issues (multipathing never works) but there's never a good time to take down exchange. We run fully redundant paths (2x switches, 2x HBA's, 2x RAID controllers) on each SAN, though they share the switches.
CentOS doesn't panic under load; at least not on our mix of machines... It performs very well with SAN storage. Only very recently have we started getting some HP DL380 G5 servers with noticibly faster local disk than either SAN.
CentOS is community supported and works well on all the hardware RHEL works on. They are so alike in fact we run ClearCase on CentOS just by changing the contents of/etc/redhat-release.
I think CentOS solves some of the problems you mentioned since it's just a binary compatible clone of RHEL as long as you use the *EL* kernels, but we've never tried SAN volume replication over the WAN, but I'm not sure why we wouldn't be able to do it since it's a function of the SAN and not the hosts. We have considered trying it over our DS3 to one of our branch offices though, since it's something both SANs support.
In theory, OOOXML could be turned into a reasonable standard so that is the other option. In theory.
In theory, evolutionary pressures could drive pigs to develop wings. In theory. The flaw in your argument is that you assume it is possible to create an environment which would lead to such an evolution.
Blame Verizon, because the technology to do this very well (without GPS infact) is out there: http://trueposition.com/
Shame on them... But Verizon's A-GPS is a neat technology too, it's just too bad that you need a handset that supports it. Luckily GSM users are covered by something better than GPS for E-911 positioning (see above link)...
I observed on Saturday that I was unable to establish a TCP connection (SSH on port 22) to my corporate gateway from Comcast in Cinnaminson, NJ. The particular machine is dual homed on the XO network and Verizon Business. Strangely enough, I was able to ping and traceroute to these networks without problems...
I wonder if using a UDP based VPN instead would I have had similar problems. If I were the betting type I would say probably not based on what I am reading here. It sounds like they were only filtering TCP traffic to certain destinations...
That's really unacceptable. I need to find the number for customer complaints in my neighborhood.
If anything, they should just implement RFC 2386 and if your traffic isn't classified properly, it's your fault.
Well, I have a friend with AcidHands - whenever he touches the bluing of a gun it changes color as it starts to oxidize quickly... I'm told thats because he has an acidic pH to his skin.
Maybe there is a computer equivalent. Our Linux guy killed two boxes this week by just being around them... One a Compaq x86 server, the other a Sun E220R. Whatever that condition is called, that guy seems to have it.
We also have another guy at work that suffers from a condition we coined Chronic Fecalaroma.
Does anyone know what routing protocols these sites would be running?
I'm guessing BGP, but if that is the case, is this indicative of a failure to properly implement it? Or would this be the expected behavior from a well engineered network under these circumstances?
WizardX is spot on. I'm a Cisco/Solaris administrator and even the old cisco switches are better than a D-Link/Linksys/SMC or whatever. I have a few nice bit's of equipment at home (plenty of awesome ones at work: Cat4506's, some 6509s, 2960's, just got a new 4948, lots of 2600/2800/3745/3845's, and my favorite the 7206VXR) and I have load tested them. Take the very common combo of a Cisco 3640 router (2x NM-2FE-2W) and a 2924XL switch which together can consistently route at 100Mb/s when using CEF. Now, if you want to do anything crazy like policy routing you drop to about 16Mbit/s of throughput on this box. Obviously it can get more complicated than that, but thats pretty solid performance for some gear that's been EOL'd for many years now... Now I also have some random consumer grade stuff too; the linksys router has a tendency to lockup after several weeks; the SMC combo router/AP drops packets on the switched interfaces all of the time. I can never hit 11MB/s through those devices, but through the Cisco gear I can saturate the links every time.
Don't get me wrong, the Cisco gear has it's issues (Some IOS versions can be unstable *cough* T train) and the 6509 flagship platform has it's idiosyncrasies (6348-GE over subscription - retarded design decision, 1Gb/s ASIC to switch fabric shared across 12 GE ports).
Just recently a friend who owns a small but growing fast recruiting firm (http://www.ehcmi.com/) had trouble with his comcast business service, so he came to me for help. The SMC router they gave him sucked. 20 PC's behind it and it would lose track of DHCP leases (it had some other minor issues, but that was the show stopper). I recommended he replace it with a Cisco 1811 and they couldn't be happier now. Really, the performance increase was noticeable. Sites loaded with less delay and everyone in the office was pleased. Sure the cisco gear came at a premium compared to the SMC, but just making the office happy and not having machines that randomly couldn't talk to the router made up for that several times over. This is a company that needs it's Internet connection just to operate, so it was a very worthy investment for them.
I recommend Cisco's low end devices to people when they ask me. IOS is probably the most important part of the equation. Providing hooks into IOS could be neat, it will be interesting to see what people pull off with this capability.
Can't comment on the grandparent, but we have a similar WLAN at work which is a bunch of Aruba AP-52's connected via a Cisco distribution layer with 8, 12, or 16 port POE injectors in the closets. In all there are 73 ap's all centrally managed by a pair of fully redundant Aruba 5000 mobility controllers. We have dual band (a/g @ 54Mb) coverage through out the entire building with WPA2-AES encryption. Additionally the AP's perform automatic RF management by using either radio of any abritray AP to passively listen on the WLAN and channel hop. Our Aruba wireless LAN can also perform device locations, using the known locations on a floor plan of the APs. It also uses all of the information it gathers to perform intrusion detection, rouge AP detection and DoS (disassoc. frames) attacks, wireless bridge detection, and a bunch of other stuff. You can supposedly do QoS and VoIP over the Aruba WLANs, and they're supposedly the only ones that can do it well with AP roaming enabled. You can also deploy different types of APs, one of which is called a Remote-AP which someone takes to a branch office with any internet connection which is preconfigured to connect back via IPSec and L2TP the provide all of the same connectivity as in the office. It really is a great flexible solution, but trust me as the administrator, the WLAN has caused it's share of headaches for me. Upgrading redunant controllers was a disaster about 2-3 major releases ago. It's easy now though. We still have some issue from time to time with Adhoc networks however. Thats about the only thing I ever have to track down and disable, but it's easy to find them, remember the location thing?
III- How much you want to bet they use the TUN/TAP driver on there?
So, if I get this right they have a small boot flash of some sort, RAM, and a processor, powered by a USB port, and able to perform IO over this bus. What would be really cool would be to hook this up to a powered USB hub, add USB peripherals, and build a custom appliance...
Slashdot Mirror
is slashdotted.
BitterOak's Sig:
"If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?"
No, You can be modded up for being a Unix Sysadmin, Unix Developer, or M$ hater. All of the others you mention are downward.
IP != TCP
Man, I cannot wait for IPv6 already. I'm ready for the pain. It'll be worth it.
You may not be worth this reply, however, I will try to overcome my Unixism.
"It can scarcely be denied that the supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience." - Albert Einstein
I don't mean to quote and sound all guru-ish, however, this particular quote has a deep meaning with regard to this discussion.
"Shits tough, you have to be tough too." - I think I invented that one.
Basically, if you can't swim then get out of the water, or learn to swim; those are your only choices.
Stuff like networking is zen, it's just bits on a wire. On the other hand, it can be hard. Waah.
I think this is it. They are in control NOW.
Dear Timothy, You should try rummaging through some /.ers' trash, you might get lucky and inherit a real computer for you to complain about...
Regards,
Linux
First, they didn't break 911, they somewhat broke E911. Subtle but important difference. there's 52 LMUs down, which means they can't trilaterate the position of 911 callers from Cell phones on the AT&T network in that area. It's probably a much bigger deal that several cell sites are unavailable. Lets just hope no ones life depends on it.
Elizabethtown College - about 7 miles from TMI as the crow flies (or the wind blows).
My sister went to school there, and after two and a half semesters there she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer.
Lets rewind... The morning of the accident people reported a metallic taste in the air. Turns out that of the gas released, radioactive iodine accounted for an estimated "8 - 12% of the total gases released, implying a minimum of 1 million iodine curies". See: TMI Accident.
I don't believe that people were not harmed by the radioactive release. In fact, stating that it "had little to no effect on the health of people" is a lie. Any arguments based on that lie are faulty.
I am for nuclear power, and I agree that letting bean counters manage a project like that is the wrong way. I'm in agreement with all of the other people here who think that engineers should be listened to. They are the ones with the knowledge after all...
On the other hand, MikroTik devices do suck.
Ever had the pleasure of dealing with one of these pieces of garbage?
Not that Cisco doesn't have problems (FWIW, I admin a fair sized Cisco network), but MikroTik routers give me a feeling in my gut that it's just about to break, any minute now... I could build a better router out of a PC and some NICs (and have - love OpenBSD)...
Disclaimer: my experience with MikroTik is from dealing with a particular Indian Contracting firm that uses them, and they also happen to have incompetent admins (willing to give me admin on their boxes to fix their problems - told 'em to deal with their own gear)... Maybe that's a commonality between MicroTik users?
Sounds like STP was configured poorly and you had a switching loop. I've seen it happen where one switch is configured wrong and make another switch's CPU peg, especially if the other switch decided to advertise itself as the root bridge and it didn't make sense.
:set nohlsearch
I haven't tried Ubuntu on our SAN yet, but I have a few Solaris boxes, and several Linux machines (CentOS 4 & 5) on our SAN which consists of an HP Storage array, and another Sun (StorageTek) storage array, both connected via redundant Brocade FC switches. Both contain multiple trays of 2Gb/s FC disks, and we've got probably 35-40 TB on those two, plus on another older SAN (Procomm hardware) providing about another 14TB I think...
CentOS works pretty well on the HP SAN, but not well on the Sun SAN. Supposedly we can do a firmware upgrade on the Sun RAID controllers to address the linux issues (multipathing never works) but there's never a good time to take down exchange. We run fully redundant paths (2x switches, 2x HBA's, 2x RAID controllers) on each SAN, though they share the switches.
CentOS doesn't panic under load; at least not on our mix of machines... It performs very well with SAN storage. Only very recently have we started getting some HP DL380 G5 servers with noticibly faster local disk than either SAN.
CentOS is community supported and works well on all the hardware RHEL works on. They are so alike in fact we run ClearCase on CentOS just by changing the contents of /etc/redhat-release.
I think CentOS solves some of the problems you mentioned since it's just a binary compatible clone of RHEL as long as you use the *EL* kernels, but we've never tried SAN volume replication over the WAN, but I'm not sure why we wouldn't be able to do it since it's a function of the SAN and not the hosts. We have considered trying it over our DS3 to one of our branch offices though, since it's something both SANs support.
Screw digging a ditch.
Lay zero cable:
http://www.lightpointe.com/products/fl_100.cfm
I'm sorry that you had to deal with that...
Blame Verizon, because the technology to do this very well (without GPS infact) is out there: http://trueposition.com/
Shame on them... But Verizon's A-GPS is a neat technology too, it's just too bad that you need a handset that supports it. Luckily GSM users are covered by something better than GPS for E-911 positioning (see above link)...
I observed on Saturday that I was unable to establish a TCP connection (SSH on port 22) to my corporate gateway from Comcast in Cinnaminson, NJ. The particular machine is dual homed on the XO network and Verizon Business. Strangely enough, I was able to ping and traceroute to these networks without problems...
I wonder if using a UDP based VPN instead would I have had similar problems. If I were the betting type I would say probably not based on what I am reading here. It sounds like they were only filtering TCP traffic to certain destinations...
That's really unacceptable. I need to find the number for customer complaints in my neighborhood.
If anything, they should just implement RFC 2386 and if your traffic isn't classified properly, it's your fault.
Well, I have a friend with AcidHands - whenever he touches the bluing of a gun it changes color as it starts to oxidize quickly... I'm told thats because he has an acidic pH to his skin.
Maybe there is a computer equivalent. Our Linux guy killed two boxes this week by just being around them... One a Compaq x86 server, the other a Sun E220R. Whatever that condition is called, that guy seems to have it.
We also have another guy at work that suffers from a condition we coined Chronic Fecalaroma.
I tell you, there's a condition for everything...
Does anyone know what routing protocols these sites would be running?
I'm guessing BGP, but if that is the case, is this indicative of a failure to properly implement it? Or would this be the expected behavior from a well engineered network under these circumstances?
Well, I hope the universe is Copy on Write, otherwise it's going to invoke some very high cpu utilization...
I wonder if the Administrator will paste it to the same filesystem??? Perhaps they have shadow copy?
I sure hope we are executing with real-time priority...
WizardX is spot on. I'm a Cisco/Solaris administrator and even the old cisco switches are better than a D-Link/Linksys/SMC or whatever. I have a few nice bit's of equipment at home (plenty of awesome ones at work: Cat4506's, some 6509s, 2960's, just got a new 4948, lots of 2600/2800/3745/3845's, and my favorite the 7206VXR) and I have load tested them. Take the very common combo of a Cisco 3640 router (2x NM-2FE-2W) and a 2924XL switch which together can consistently route at 100Mb/s when using CEF. Now, if you want to do anything crazy like policy routing you drop to about 16Mbit/s of throughput on this box. Obviously it can get more complicated than that, but thats pretty solid performance for some gear that's been EOL'd for many years now... Now I also have some random consumer grade stuff too; the linksys router has a tendency to lockup after several weeks; the SMC combo router/AP drops packets on the switched interfaces all of the time. I can never hit 11MB/s through those devices, but through the Cisco gear I can saturate the links every time.
Don't get me wrong, the Cisco gear has it's issues (Some IOS versions can be unstable *cough* T train) and the 6509 flagship platform has it's idiosyncrasies (6348-GE over subscription - retarded design decision, 1Gb/s ASIC to switch fabric shared across 12 GE ports).
Just recently a friend who owns a small but growing fast recruiting firm (http://www.ehcmi.com/) had trouble with his comcast business service, so he came to me for help. The SMC router they gave him sucked. 20 PC's behind it and it would lose track of DHCP leases (it had some other minor issues, but that was the show stopper). I recommended he replace it with a Cisco 1811 and they couldn't be happier now. Really, the performance increase was noticeable. Sites loaded with less delay and everyone in the office was pleased. Sure the cisco gear came at a premium compared to the SMC, but just making the office happy and not having machines that randomly couldn't talk to the router made up for that several times over. This is a company that needs it's Internet connection just to operate, so it was a very worthy investment for them.
I recommend Cisco's low end devices to people when they ask me. IOS is probably the most important part of the equation. Providing hooks into IOS could be neat, it will be interesting to see what people pull off with this capability.
50 years from now, when extreme social decay is traced to the teaching of ID in school, /. will be proven correct. I hope that was educational.
Can't comment on the grandparent, but we have a similar WLAN at work which is a bunch of Aruba AP-52's connected via a Cisco distribution layer with 8, 12, or 16 port POE injectors in the closets. In all there are 73 ap's all centrally managed by a pair of fully redundant Aruba 5000 mobility controllers. We have dual band (a/g @ 54Mb) coverage through out the entire building with WPA2-AES encryption. Additionally the AP's perform automatic RF management by using either radio of any abritray AP to passively listen on the WLAN and channel hop. Our Aruba wireless LAN can also perform device locations, using the known locations on a floor plan of the APs. It also uses all of the information it gathers to perform intrusion detection, rouge AP detection and DoS (disassoc. frames) attacks, wireless bridge detection, and a bunch of other stuff. You can supposedly do QoS and VoIP over the Aruba WLANs, and they're supposedly the only ones that can do it well with AP roaming enabled. You can also deploy different types of APs, one of which is called a Remote-AP which someone takes to a branch office with any internet connection which is preconfigured to connect back via IPSec and L2TP the provide all of the same connectivity as in the office. It really is a great flexible solution, but trust me as the administrator, the WLAN has caused it's share of headaches for me. Upgrading redunant controllers was a disaster about 2-3 major releases ago. It's easy now though. We still have some issue from time to time with Adhoc networks however. Thats about the only thing I ever have to track down and disable, but it's easy to find them, remember the location thing?
A) It's a tiny computer running Linux. Rock on.
2. Drivers will be out for other OS's
III- How much you want to bet they use the TUN/TAP driver on there?
So, if I get this right they have a small boot flash of some sort, RAM, and a processor, powered by a USB port, and able to perform IO over this bus. What would be really cool would be to hook this up to a powered USB hub, add USB peripherals, and build a custom appliance...
Some how I think you are right about the oversight...
You know what they say, BSD is for people that love Unix; Linux is for people that hate Windows...