Has anyone done any measurement stats on DNS queries.
I have a moderately busy web site with my Apache set to log with domain name rather than just IP address, so it does a lookup on each request. MRTG shows a direct correlation between the bandwidth from the web machine and bandwidth to/from the DNS server and the DNS server is doing absolutely nothing else at the moment but serving this one machine. I set it this way late last week when the site was posted on Yahoo's Buzz Log and activity went to 10 times normal. Offloading the DNS resolution to the spare machine helped keep the CPU less than 100% and reduced the wait queue;)
At the current 26-28 requests/second showing in the Apache status screen, the bandwitdh for the DNS machine is 1.5kByes/sec in and 2.2kBytes/sec out.
Another thing I've recently noticed that you might want to study is corporate IT departments (and even one major ISP) putting their DNS servers behind a firewall that black-lists "public" (dhcp/dialup) IP addresses and doesn't respond to them.
This is very disconcerting when you have your own caching resolver locally because you know that your upstream provider has a DNS server that is broken (too long TTL for example)
I have my/etc/resolv.conf pointing at my own named because I use it to monitor the DNS servers I administer out in a couple of colocates. I can't resolve (for example) our local gas company's web address because their DNS servers are behind their firewall and won't talk to my IP address off my cable modem. Doing a lookup from my colocate addresses works fine.
This is very much an issue now that cable and DSL is being used for corporate feeds.
I noticed this back in the mid to late '90s. Many times AOL's DNS servers would take more than a month to notice an IP move. Same thing with others but AOL was the worst at the time. We used to caution our customers that if/when they moved to us or away from us, they needed to keep something at the old DNS for some time to redirect to the new one (web server, e-mail server, ftp server, etc.)
The problem was not consistent, some of their servers displayed it and others (lesser number) did not - I believe that the ones that actually did use TTL properly were in fact the newest ones, and that at some time they were pushed into the mold of the old ones after they were put into service.
Seems to me if the ramdisk was set as swap the effect would be similar to an increase in RAM, just funneled through the OS. It would be far faster than swapping to disk but slower than having directly addressable ram on the CPU bus.
Note that if you're using ramdisk for file system, your statement only holds if you are hitting less than cache sized chunks and the rest of the system is not using the cache for something else. When you have something like a huge sequential file or a bunch of them (streaming video anyone?) the ramdisk will perform better than spinning disks. The key is rotational latency coupled with speed of the data under the read head (and having hardware on the disk that can push that data out to the bus). New 15krpm disks minimize this but it still exists.
Congratulations!!! You just rediscovered the "analog hole" that pretty much invalidates any DRM.
At some point any digital (and digitally rights managed) content, whether video, audio, print or whatever, has to be turned into something that we flesh and blood consumers can deal with. At that point there is ample opportunity to re-record the content, albeit not at exactly the same resolution/fidelity, but certainly at "good enough" for most people.
This is where those "wonderful" copies of first run movies come from with the popcorn crunching sounds and the silouette of the guy/gal in front;)
Yeah - and for many the fact that their game runs full tilt despite the rest of the system sending spam and trying to crack into my linux systems with dictionary ssh attacks may well be worth the extra money;)
Of course if the application only runs on one OS, and that OS has other problems that make it less than reliable or that demand time over and above the absolute minimum to get the system functional in the first place and back up application data ongoing, then that's another thing altogether.
My favourite application over the past 20+ years is one called filePro (16+) which started off as Profile on Radio Shack micros, notably the Model II (8" floppies and a Z80 with 64K RAM)
Over the intervening years I and my customers have migrated applications written with this system as well as data entered into them from TRS-dos to Xenix on RS model 16, to Xenix on Altos to Unix on Altos to Unix on x86 PC, to Linux on i686 and not had to re-enter anything or (with the exception of a couple of records in one customer's database that got missed in a record expansion) lost any records (or even worse, had to re-input them). One customer has records dating back to 1983 and still has access to them from his multi-location business now served by a Linux box - same data, same screen layouts, same back-end processing.
The point is that the application is fast, useful, keyboard oriented, easy to use and modify, works on everything from old hardware to the latest (including DEC Vax) and even runs on Windows of various flavors if you are truly perverse;)
But the really great thing about it is that IT DOESN'T USE A GUI - it is text based.
I recall another (accounting) application many of my customers have used for years - that shortly after Windows 3.1 came out added a GUI version - and has pretty much dropped all pretext of being backwards compatible with the older text "shortcuts". It used to be that you could sit with a pile of receipts and bang them into the program without even looking at the screen - never taking your hands off the keyboard.
Now you have to take a hand away from the keyboard, grab the mouse and navigate to a button to store each and every transaction - getting only 10% or less productivity.
Now that DOS compatibility is pretty much gone from Window they can't even run the old code (not supported though it is); except - - hey - - is dosemu still around on Linux????
Gee, I don't know - you can wash (real) flags in one, and using a href="http://www.altvetmed.com/face/47304-semaphor e-flags.html" semaphor flags is certainly communications so of course the FCC has jurisdiction over washing machines.
One of our predecessor companies has a product based around Oracle 7 running on a legacy Linux OS (RH 6.2)
As CTO, it came down to doing the math when we were looking at updating the Oracle or starting from scratch on a simlar project but starting on a 4 processor box capable of being updated to 8-way. Instead of Oracle we chose PostgreSQL, even though it will cost us quite a bit of up-front programming costs - the down stream benefits will be enormous as we move to the new multi-core processors (next generation hardware we're already looking at)
anybody else have this lock up their system?
on
EFF's Logfinder
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· Score: 2, Interesting
OK - I downloaded it, untar'd, and ran it as root on my Toshiba laptop (RH-9 2.4.20-31.9 kernel, 1G RAM) and the machine locked up. I had switched to another window and was looking at a log file while the program "thought" in the original window. I also had a number of remote ssh sessions open. The machine had been up for about 30 minutes today already.
This system is rock solid, in use for hours/day with the exact same mix of programs running constantly (evolution, mozilla, ssh/rxvt windows to external systems, etc.)
comments?
Re:Hehee. Just like loading off a Cassette tape :)
on
Piezo-Acoustic iPod Hack
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· Score: 2, Interesting
The other way is to make the CPU and related circuitry "talk" via an AM radio sitting by the case. Of course back when the CPU was 2-4MHz this was easy as this was within only a few harmonics of the band - but at the near and beyond GHZ this might be a bit problematic.
And then there was playing the 1812 on the chain printer... but that's a different story;)
IBM is either sold on Open Source as "the way of the new millenium" or making hay before the patent paradigm of the old millenium is stabbed in the heart.
Personally I think they have the idea that software patents are going the way of the dodo and this is the easiest and best way of cashing in on what they have - and they have my vote in the race for smartest global corporation this mellenium.
Ooohh... and all that lovely code to subvert into viruses too...
OK - an integrated development environment with lots of lovely "integration" can be a good thing - but if you let it in at the level of the operating system you're just asking for trouble. Keep that shzt out of my OS and I'll be happy. Put it into a user-land system (such as is shaping up in Gnome and KDE) and I'm satisfied. This stuff is not part of (nor should it be) UNIX (or Linux).
And what is right with UNIX is that you can print over SAMBA to a windoze box.
Every tried printing from a windoze box to LPD (or even CUPS?)
I've used darned near every major programming and user environment available since the late '60s - TOPS 10, IBM OS-VS, MTS, Wilbur (front end for JCL on IBM), TRS-Dos, Apple-OS, UNIX, Xenix (on LISA and TRS-16/6000 as well as Altos and SCO), MS-Dos, CPM, MPM, Windows 1.0, 3.0 (whatever happend to 2?) 98, NT, 2000, XP, and of course Linux from 0.91 to date, and I've never had it so easy in getting disparate systems to talk as with any of the distros of UNIX/Linux.
Want to deal with EBCDIC, baudot, broken serial (7E2 or whatever), wierd hardware (ok, some requires sacrificing a couple of chickens, but at least you can get the data off), BiSync? Just try to get such things working easily and within minutes/hours from a Windoze box (or any flavour of mainframe, mini or non-Unix-based micro) and I'll run circles around you.
Nobody ever said that a Swiss Army Knife had to be sveldt or look elegant up against a Japanese Samuri sword, but try to use the sword to open a bottle of wine or dig the dirt out of your boots and you'll wish you had something else.
UNIX/Linux/Minix/POSIX defines the Swiss Army Knife - and most of the time that's good enough for me.
the biggest problem with UNIX is that there is so much software "out there" that runs on it with little or no problem.
If it were not that UNIX was initially given to the universities for the cost of the media, there wouldn't have been so many people who learned how to create programs on it.
If the basic API of UNIX hadn't been so damned obvious and easy to deal with (and adapt to newer kernels, and port to newer hardware architectures) we'd have had to re-invent all the other wheels that today we take for granted - sh (and bash) csh (and tsh, zsh etc.), vi, awk, grep, sed, PERL, etc... and when we re-invented them we'd have fixed all the obvious problems, like "too many args" or ugly text interfaces or non-orthoganal option naming.
If UNIX hadn't been so damned useful, we'd have spent more time inventing new paradigms - and made a truly integrated GUI-OS system, instead of making a useful OS and lots of optional GUIs.
Yup, if UNIX wasn't so damned useful and ubiquitous, we'd have had time and reason to invent something else, - like maybe Linux.
vi was spawned back in the days when UNIX was all dumb terminals and text - but with your choice of X client, the only thing holding you back from using the mouse and visual cut/paste is your choice from all the available editors that can handle a text file - even Open Office will do it.
On the other hand, I don't use vim, I use vi - some things are just easier to use than to unlearn;)
I've been driving a vehicle for years that usually gets better than 60MPG (Canadian - not that wimpy American Gallon;)
I get to go on ferries no matter what the lineup, and I get to go in HOV (high occupancy vehicle) lanes even though I'm alone.
I ride a motorcycle!
In my case it is currently a Honda GL 1800 but was recently a GL 1500.
I know people who ride all manner of 2 wheeled vehicles.
In Europe and the East, these are more than just a fad, they are legitimate commuter vehicles - how come not in North America? (leaving aside the problem that only her in Vancouver and the South Western portions of BC are Canadians blessed with weather that allows almost year-round riding;) There's lots of places that have climates that encourage riding many of the months of the year.
I'll ride 'till I die - and love every minute of it!
Lots of talk about ReiserFS previously but I didn't see anything about the use of its XML plug-in and the possibilities that this might be a way to allow an evolutionary approach to the whole problem of alternative means of finding stuff you know is there but don't know where.
The fact is that XML in some form or other seems to be the direction that many "office" type programs are headed, and it is amenable to being used as the underlying means of indexing other document types too - there being XML extensions and filters for many databases as well as native databases for it.
In fact, Reiser with the XML plug in is supposed to be one of the fastest XML databases out there.
So... if the implementation is split into file store and meta-data store, and the metadata is stored in XML - then it should be possible to cater to both those who can (and want to) use Reiser and those who can't/don't.
Of course I may just be blowing smoke out my ears after the Labor day blowout last night;)
The other point I'd make is that there should be some way to plug-in tools for after-the-fact analysis and indexing of documents to add to the system - I have e-mail and correspondence going back to 1983 (from Xenix and TRS-Dos days) that I'd love to include in the system but only if the system will find and catalog it for me. I'd certainly be willing to teach it how to deal with Scripsit and Multi-plan files (even Visicalc).
Don't worry if the analysis takes days/weeks/months - shove it off into background and let it vie for time with your screen saver or SETI. I don't care because I don't expect to get around to it manually for another 20+ years;)
Taking a look at ctime and mtime (on Unix systems) for example to tell when a document was initially created and last modified would go a long way towards filling in the gaps on the timeline. Then categorize by the keywords in the directory tree structure the document is found in (there are several trees from the past that contain the word "customer" for instance - and all items below those trees should be able to be aggregated) and by gross file-type (visicalc, multiplan, excel, etc. are all spreadsheets for example) and things would start looking up.
Use the magic file, not file extensions - look inside the file (using "strings" for instance) for keywords if the file type's major structure isn't (yet) known - and abstract comments and other info (date/time/f-stop, copyright notices, etc.) from the likes of image files too. Even abstract the image files down to a predominent color (show me all the green images - or all the flesh-colored ones). Abstract the image size and track it too - show me all the images except the 160x120 and 640x480 (they are created from the originals)
Think about the fact that the average desktop system is idle a majority of the time and use that CPU horsepower to make my life easier.
Also - don't worry about using more storage for the meta-data than the original document used - storage is now so cheap compared to my time that you can use 10-100 times as much if it will save me an hour looking for something.
I'm watching any/all of these types of projects looking for one that will come even close to what I think I need.
the fact is there really are "four" laws - the zero'th law supercedes the first law by placing humanity above the individual - but it took a robot to come up with it.
OK - you were being trite, but you really should have read the follow-ons to the original novels.
Entertain them for a half hour (or more) on hold - radio comedy shows from the 40's and 50's
Remind them of a time before computers - 101 strings playing "hits" of the 60's and 70's
Get them to forget they're on hold if they're over age 40 - up-tempo orchestral classics - Brahms, Beethoven, Thaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Mussagorsky, etc.
But whatever you play, run it through an audio compressor so the dynamic range is minimal - and then check the actual volume from another phone so you neither blast them out nor make them strain to hear.
Slashdot Mirror
I have a moderately busy web site with my Apache set to log with domain name rather than just IP address, so it does a lookup on each request. MRTG shows a direct correlation between the bandwidth from the web machine and bandwidth to/from the DNS server and the DNS server is doing absolutely nothing else at the moment but serving this one machine. I set it this way late last week when the site was posted on Yahoo's Buzz Log and activity went to 10 times normal. Offloading the DNS resolution to the spare machine helped keep the CPU less than 100% and reduced the wait queue ;)
At the current 26-28 requests/second showing in the Apache status screen, the bandwitdh for the DNS machine is 1.5kByes/sec in and 2.2kBytes/sec out.
Another thing I've recently noticed that you might want to study is corporate IT departments (and even one major ISP) putting their DNS servers behind a firewall that black-lists "public" (dhcp/dialup) IP addresses and doesn't respond to them.
This is very disconcerting when you have your own caching resolver locally because you know that your upstream provider has a DNS server that is broken (too long TTL for example)
I have my /etc/resolv.conf pointing at my own named because I use it to monitor the DNS servers I administer out in a couple of colocates. I can't resolve (for example) our local gas company's web address because their DNS servers are behind their firewall and won't talk to my IP address off my cable modem. Doing a lookup from my colocate addresses works fine.
This is very much an issue now that cable and DSL is being used for corporate feeds.
The problem was not consistent, some of their servers displayed it and others (lesser number) did not - I believe that the ones that actually did use TTL properly were in fact the newest ones, and that at some time they were pushed into the mold of the old ones after they were put into service.
Note that if you're using ramdisk for file system, your statement only holds if you are hitting less than cache sized chunks and the rest of the system is not using the cache for something else. When you have something like a huge sequential file or a bunch of them (streaming video anyone?) the ramdisk will perform better than spinning disks. The key is rotational latency coupled with speed of the data under the read head (and having hardware on the disk that can push that data out to the bus). New 15krpm disks minimize this but it still exists.
At some point any digital (and digitally rights managed) content, whether video, audio, print or whatever, has to be turned into something that we flesh and blood consumers can deal with. At that point there is ample opportunity to re-record the content, albeit not at exactly the same resolution/fidelity, but certainly at "good enough" for most people.
This is where those "wonderful" copies of first run movies come from with the popcorn crunching sounds and the silouette of the guy/gal in front ;)
Yeah - and for many the fact that their game runs full tilt despite the rest of the system sending spam and trying to crack into my linux systems with dictionary ssh attacks may well be worth the extra money ;)
Of course if the application only runs on one OS, and that OS has other problems that make it less than reliable or that demand time over and above the absolute minimum to get the system functional in the first place and back up application data ongoing, then that's another thing altogether.
My favourite application over the past 20+ years is one called filePro (16+) which started off as Profile on Radio Shack micros, notably the Model II (8" floppies and a Z80 with 64K RAM)
Over the intervening years I and my customers have migrated applications written with this system as well as data entered into them from TRS-dos to Xenix on RS model 16, to Xenix on Altos to Unix on Altos to Unix on x86 PC, to Linux on i686 and not had to re-enter anything or (with the exception of a couple of records in one customer's database that got missed in a record expansion) lost any records (or even worse, had to re-input them). One customer has records dating back to 1983 and still has access to them from his multi-location business now served by a Linux box - same data, same screen layouts, same back-end processing.
The point is that the application is fast, useful, keyboard oriented, easy to use and modify, works on everything from old hardware to the latest (including DEC Vax) and even runs on Windows of various flavors if you are truly perverse ;)
But the really great thing about it is that IT DOESN'T USE A GUI - it is text based.
I recall another (accounting) application many of my customers have used for years - that shortly after Windows 3.1 came out added a GUI version - and has pretty much dropped all pretext of being backwards compatible with the older text "shortcuts". It used to be that you could sit with a pile of receipts and bang them into the program without even looking at the screen - never taking your hands off the keyboard.
Now you have to take a hand away from the keyboard, grab the mouse and navigate to a button to store each and every transaction - getting only 10% or less productivity.
Now that DOS compatibility is pretty much gone from Window they can't even run the old code (not supported though it is); except - - hey - - is dosemu still around on Linux????
Gee, I don't know - you can wash (real) flags in one, and using a href="http://www.altvetmed.com/face/47304-semaphor e-flags.html" semaphor flags is certainly communications so of course the FCC has jurisdiction over washing machines.
As CTO, it came down to doing the math when we were looking at updating the Oracle or starting from scratch on a simlar project but starting on a 4 processor box capable of being updated to 8-way. Instead of Oracle we chose PostgreSQL, even though it will cost us quite a bit of up-front programming costs - the down stream benefits will be enormous as we move to the new multi-core processors (next generation hardware we're already looking at)
This system is rock solid, in use for hours/day with the exact same mix of programs running constantly (evolution, mozilla, ssh/rxvt windows to external systems, etc.)
comments?
And then there was playing the 1812 on the chain printer... but that's a different story ;)
If Microsoft did this I'd be checking to see if I'd somehow slipped into another reality.
The use of "they" not "it" is reasonable.
Of course if you think that "your" is the same as "you're" then all bets are off ;)
Personally I think they have the idea that software patents are going the way of the dodo and this is the easiest and best way of cashing in on what they have - and they have my vote in the race for smartest global corporation this mellenium.
OK - an integrated development environment with lots of lovely "integration" can be a good thing - but if you let it in at the level of the operating system you're just asking for trouble. Keep that shzt out of my OS and I'll be happy. Put it into a user-land system (such as is shaping up in Gnome and KDE) and I'm satisfied. This stuff is not part of (nor should it be) UNIX (or Linux).
The file layout may be ugly, but either of them is heaven compared to scrabbling around in the dark areas of the registry.
Every tried printing from a windoze box to LPD (or even CUPS?)
I've used darned near every major programming and user environment available since the late '60s - TOPS 10, IBM OS-VS, MTS, Wilbur (front end for JCL on IBM), TRS-Dos, Apple-OS, UNIX, Xenix (on LISA and TRS-16/6000 as well as Altos and SCO), MS-Dos, CPM, MPM, Windows 1.0, 3.0 (whatever happend to 2?) 98, NT, 2000, XP, and of course Linux from 0.91 to date, and I've never had it so easy in getting disparate systems to talk as with any of the distros of UNIX/Linux.
Want to deal with EBCDIC, baudot, broken serial (7E2 or whatever), wierd hardware (ok, some requires sacrificing a couple of chickens, but at least you can get the data off), BiSync? Just try to get such things working easily and within minutes/hours from a Windoze box (or any flavour of mainframe, mini or non-Unix-based micro) and I'll run circles around you.
Nobody ever said that a Swiss Army Knife had to be sveldt or look elegant up against a Japanese Samuri sword, but try to use the sword to open a bottle of wine or dig the dirt out of your boots and you'll wish you had something else.
UNIX/Linux/Minix/POSIX defines the Swiss Army Knife - and most of the time that's good enough for me.
If it were not that UNIX was initially given to the universities for the cost of the media, there wouldn't have been so many people who learned how to create programs on it.
If the basic API of UNIX hadn't been so damned obvious and easy to deal with (and adapt to newer kernels, and port to newer hardware architectures) we'd have had to re-invent all the other wheels that today we take for granted - sh (and bash) csh (and tsh, zsh etc.), vi, awk, grep, sed, PERL, etc... and when we re-invented them we'd have fixed all the obvious problems, like "too many args" or ugly text interfaces or non-orthoganal option naming.
If UNIX hadn't been so damned useful, we'd have spent more time inventing new paradigms - and made a truly integrated GUI-OS system, instead of making a useful OS and lots of optional GUIs.
Yup, if UNIX wasn't so damned useful and ubiquitous, we'd have had time and reason to invent something else, - like maybe Linux.
vi was spawned back in the days when UNIX was all dumb terminals and text - but with your choice of X client, the only thing holding you back from using the mouse and visual cut/paste is your choice from all the available editors that can handle a text file - even Open Office will do it.
On the other hand, I don't use vim, I use vi - some things are just easier to use than to unlearn ;)
Either that or he was just trying to see who was inside driving.
I've been driving a vehicle for years that usually gets better than 60MPG (Canadian - not that wimpy American Gallon ;)
;) There's lots of places that have climates that encourage riding many of the months of the year.
I get to go on ferries no matter what the lineup, and I get to go in HOV (high occupancy vehicle) lanes even though I'm alone.
I ride a motorcycle!
In my case it is currently a Honda GL 1800 but was recently a GL 1500.
I know people who ride all manner of 2 wheeled vehicles.
In Europe and the East, these are more than just a fad, they are legitimate commuter vehicles - how come not in North America? (leaving aside the problem that only her in Vancouver and the South Western portions of BC are Canadians blessed with weather that allows almost year-round riding
I'll ride 'till I die - and love every minute of it!
The fact is that XML in some form or other seems to be the direction that many "office" type programs are headed, and it is amenable to being used as the underlying means of indexing other document types too - there being XML extensions and filters for many databases as well as native databases for it.
In fact, Reiser with the XML plug in is supposed to be one of the fastest XML databases out there.
So... if the implementation is split into file store and meta-data store, and the metadata is stored in XML - then it should be possible to cater to both those who can (and want to) use Reiser and those who can't/don't.
Of course I may just be blowing smoke out my ears after the Labor day blowout last night ;)
The other point I'd make is that there should be some way to plug-in tools for after-the-fact analysis and indexing of documents to add to the system - I have e-mail and correspondence going back to 1983 (from Xenix and TRS-Dos days) that I'd love to include in the system but only if the system will find and catalog it for me. I'd certainly be willing to teach it how to deal with Scripsit and Multi-plan files (even Visicalc).
Don't worry if the analysis takes days/weeks/months - shove it off into background and let it vie for time with your screen saver or SETI. I don't care because I don't expect to get around to it manually for another 20+ years ;)
Taking a look at ctime and mtime (on Unix systems) for example to tell when a document was initially created and last modified would go a long way towards filling in the gaps on the timeline. Then categorize by the keywords in the directory tree structure the document is found in (there are several trees from the past that contain the word "customer" for instance - and all items below those trees should be able to be aggregated) and by gross file-type (visicalc, multiplan, excel, etc. are all spreadsheets for example) and things would start looking up.
Use the magic file, not file extensions - look inside the file (using "strings" for instance) for keywords if the file type's major structure isn't (yet) known - and abstract comments and other info (date/time/f-stop, copyright notices, etc.) from the likes of image files too. Even abstract the image files down to a predominent color (show me all the green images - or all the flesh-colored ones). Abstract the image size and track it too - show me all the images except the 160x120 and 640x480 (they are created from the originals)
Think about the fact that the average desktop system is idle a majority of the time and use that CPU horsepower to make my life easier.
Also - don't worry about using more storage for the meta-data than the original document used - storage is now so cheap compared to my time that you can use 10-100 times as much if it will save me an hour looking for something.
I'm watching any/all of these types of projects looking for one that will come even close to what I think I need.
yup - that's the scariest concept I can imagine coming from this movie - they're all male.
OK - you were being trite, but you really should have read the follow-ons to the original novels.
Get them humming, at least for a time - Abba
Entertain them for a half hour (or more) on hold - radio comedy shows from the 40's and 50's
Remind them of a time before computers - 101 strings playing "hits" of the 60's and 70's
Get them to forget they're on hold if they're over age 40 - up-tempo orchestral classics - Brahms, Beethoven, Thaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Mussagorsky, etc.
But whatever you play, run it through an audio compressor so the dynamic range is minimal - and then check the actual volume from another phone so you neither blast them out nor make them strain to hear.