Blades, but not the sharp kind, seriously.

Keywords: #blade #intel #sbxd132
Just plugged in a couple new (yes I know discontinued) Intel SBXD132‘s. Naturally, BIOS and Embedded Management (SMP) is code is out of date, 1.06 is current, 1.04 is installed, and I’m not entirely sure about the SMP version numbers. Flash the BIOS uneventfully, then, go to flash the SMP. SMP nearly completes, taking it’s sweet time, then get a mysterious error message in the WebUI along with 20 ERR SERVPROC 02/14/08 16:34:54 (WMN315709449) Flash of Blade System Management Processor (slot 5) from 192.

No whammies!

Keywords: #supermicro
As our new SysAdmin is fond of saying, No Whammies! The aforementioned afflicted Supermicro PDSMI+ SYS-5015M-T+B chassis is now in one piece slogging through burn-in testing thanks to one VERY helpful comment.

Wow, someone reads this crap?

Keywords: #supermicro
I have to say thanks to mickrussom because he gave me the heads up/answer as to WHY our Supermicro PDSMI+ system wasn’t working. Turns out the Intel 3000 north bridge ONLY supports up to 1066MHZ FSB speeds, despite the specifications on Supermicro‘s site clearly claiming “Supports a Dual-Core Intel® Xeon® 3000 Series processor” — Their emphasis, not mine, without any caveats or mentions of “with FSB Speeds of up to 1066MHZ.

Of Domains and Duhmains

Keywords: #godaddy #joker #registrars
So. This is the story of trying to register dotblag.com. I’ve used joker.com as my primary registrar for some years now. They’ve been reliable and responsive in the past when I’ve needed manual intervention/help. However. Their CC validation system lately has been, to say the least, persnickety. Wonk. Very wonk. To the point that I have to take my business elsewhere. While processing the registration for dotblag.com, the .com registration was denied but the .

Kernel Bugs ... No, not corn kernels, the other kind.

This one is shorter than usual. Things have been busy but I wanted to muse on this, because, thankfully, I didn’t get bit by it. Linux 2.6.17 to about 2.6.24.1 or so has a nice little bug in the vmsplit syscall, wherein it fails to validate parameters. Thus, one can get root. Well I set about upgrading some machines, and the other Systems Admin here set about upgrading most of the others.

RAID, no, not the insecticide, though there is a bug here.

Keywords: #areca #solaris #zfs
Areca ARC-1280 (and ARC-1280ML’s, same product, different connector) have 24 SATA ports. But only support 16 drives in JBOD mode….or in any mode really, 16 drives exposed to the host is maximum. The controller deadlocks during POST/INIT if you have 17+ drives when it’s set to JBOD mode. So you can have 12 LUNs 2 drives each (mirrors) or some other combination of RAID, but you can’t do JBOD with 24 drives as of the most current (1.

AAAA, and I'm not talking bonds or insurance.

The root name servers now officially have AAAA glue records installed. This is actually a pretty major step towards global IPv6 deployment. There was a few snafu/foul-ups, mostly regarding VeriSign not setting the connection limit high enough on ftp.rs.internic.net so causing a mirror failure. What does this mean to you, as someone who’s on the internet? Not a damn thing probably since most ISPs and NSPs haven’t begun to widely deploy IPv6.

Hardware is, well, HARD...

I haven’t posted about it before but we’ve an ongoing saga in attempting to get together a 1U server for a customer. Normally…this isn’t an issue. Our regular vendor (QSol) though has made some business decisions which means, atleast for the time being, for our lowest level/cheapest 1U machines/dedicated servers they’re a little outside of the price point we’re willing to look at. They did their best to get us something as we have a long standing business relationship with them, and so they sent along a machine.

Trend vs. Barracuda

Keywords: #anti-spam #anti-virus #legal
Trend Sues Barracuda Over Gateway Anti-Spam Techniques Wow. Just WOW. In a nutshell Trend is suing Barracuda. Why? Because they can. Because the USPTO gave them a BS patent, like they’ve given so many others. Wow. Just. Wow. If Trend manages to win this it could open up all other AV software, gateway scanning software, and similar products to litigation.

E-Mail Is Not Your Error Log

Or, how NOT to “log” errors. Especially on web based stuff. ESPECIALLY. Output from one of our mail processing frontends. The script runs mailq and collates the output, sorted by recipient domain. Redacted of course to protect the people with the bad idea. mfe3:~# /opt/bin/top-mailq-to-domains 2947 *REDACTED*.com 158 *REDACTED*.co.uk 117 *REDACTED*.org 116 mailbox.com This is why sending yourself an email for every error on your site is A BAD IDEA. Make a log.

NFS, How I Loathe Thee!

Keywords: #nfs
NFS. The very bane of my existence. Well maybe not quite, but it sure makes my life hell. You can’t narrow down problem/runaway areas because there’s no granularity to what tiny statistics gathering it can/does do. There’s no authentication, and little to no access control. Please, don’t start on NFSv4. Linux can’t even support NFSv3 hardly, and the 2.6 kernel is worse than 2.4. Atleast 2.4 doesn’t completely lose track of locks and locking the way 2.

Greylisting

Keywords: #greylisting #spam
OK so I’ve long been quite opposed to the use of greylisting. Recently I had a pretty major personal mail server crash and that’s caused me to at least give it a try and seriously rethink that. So when I rebuilt the mail server for wgops.com (yes I know, it’s probably STILL blank) I went ahead and installed a piece of greylisting, and other misc. spam control policy software on the Postfix based mail system.

The Story...

OK so I’ve often thought about keeping a blog purely for technical crap. So hang on, and lets see how far down the rabbit hole this one goes Alice. Bob is welcome for the ride too.