From cat at reptiles.org  Mon Nov  4 12:01:35 2002
From: cat at reptiles.org (Cat Okita)
Date: Mon, 4 Nov 2002 15:01:35 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Unemployment Lunch, Noon, Nov 5th (Tuesday, Tomorrow) (fwd)
Message-ID: <20021104150052.P10065-100000@iguana.reptiles.org>


As per suggestion, I'm forwarding this to the main list, since there's
apparently more than a few people that aren't on baylisa-jobs that might
well have an interest ;>

cheers!
==========================================================================
"A cat spends her life conflicted between a deep, passionate and profound
desire for fish and an equally deep, passionate and profound desire to
avoid getting wet.  This is the defining metaphor of my life right now."

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 4 Nov 2002 12:17:33 -0500 (EST)
From: Cat Okita <cat at reptiles.org>
To: baylisa-jobs at baylisa.org
Subject: Unemployment Lunch, Noon, Nov 5th (Tuesday, Tomorrow)


Hola!

How about a second edition of the uneployment lunch?!?

I'm sorry about the late notice - all of last week was lost in the throes
of a particularly virulent flu!

So... without further ado:

	Dana Street Roasting Company [0]
	~ Dana & Castro (on Dana), Mountain View

	Noon, Tuesday  November 5th

cheers!
[0] They do make sandwiches 'n the like - but more to the point, they've
also got wireless, and don't mind people sitting and chatting for ages
==========================================================================
"A cat spends her life conflicted between a deep, passionate and profound
desire for fish and an equally deep, passionate and profound desire to
avoid getting wet.  This is the defining metaphor of my life right now."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
You have received this message via the baylisa-jobs at baylisa.org mailing list.
For questions or comments regarding list admin, email postmaster at baylisa.org.




From extasia at mindspring.com  Wed Nov  6 13:50:04 2002
From: extasia at mindspring.com (David Alban)
Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2002 13:50:04 -0800
Subject: [baylisa] pgp.mit.edu: connection refused
Message-ID: <20021106135004.A31289@new.gerasimov.net>

Greetings!

I'm getting:

  $ gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys $KEY_ID
  gpg: requesting key $KEY_ID from pgp.mit.edu ...
  gpg: can't get key from keyserver: Connection refused

from two different domains.  Are others running into the same thing?

I can ping pgp.mit.edu:

  $ ping pgp.mit.edu
  PING CRYPTONOMICON.mit.edu (18.7.14.139): 56 data bytes
  64 bytes from 18.7.14.139: icmp_seq=0 ttl=246 time=77.389 ms
  64 bytes from 18.7.14.139: icmp_seq=1 ttl=246 time=75.396 ms
  ^C
  --- CRYPTONOMICON.mit.edu ping statistics ---
  2 packets transmitted, 2 packets received, 0% packet loss
  round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 75.396/76.392/77.389/0.997 ms

from both domains.

Anyone know why I'm getting connection refused?

It worked for me a few weeks ago.

Thanks,
David
-- 
Live in a world of your own, but always welcome visitors.
                                 ***
Join us at sig-beer-west!  http://www.gerasimov.net/~alban/sig.beer.west.html
Unix sysadmin available:   http://www.gerasimov.net/~alban/jac/resume.html
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From extasia at mindspring.com  Wed Nov  6 14:31:34 2002
From: extasia at mindspring.com (David Alban)
Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2002 14:31:34 -0800
Subject: [baylisa] pgp.mit.edu: connection refused
In-Reply-To: <20021106135004.A31289@new.gerasimov.net>; from extasia@mindspring.com on Wed, Nov 06, 2002 at 01:50:04PM -0800
References: <20021106135004.A31289@new.gerasimov.net>
Message-ID: <20021106143134.A31613@new.gerasimov.net>

At 2002/11/06/13:50 -0800 David Alban <extasia at mindspring.com> wrote:
>   $ gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys $KEY_ID
>   gpg: requesting key $KEY_ID from pgp.mit.edu ...
>   gpg: can't get key from keyserver: Connection refused

Nevermind.  It seems to be accepting connections now.

(So can I take credit for solving the problem via Murphy's Law? :-)

-- 
Live in a world of your own, but always welcome visitors.
                                 ***
Join us at sig-beer-west!  http://www.gerasimov.net/~alban/sig.beer.west.html
Unix sysadmin available:   http://www.gerasimov.net/~alban/jac/resume.html
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From rick at linuxmafia.com  Wed Nov  6 14:46:07 2002
From: rick at linuxmafia.com (Rick Moen)
Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2002 14:46:07 -0800
Subject: [baylisa] pgp.mit.edu: connection refused
In-Reply-To: <20021106135004.A31289@new.gerasimov.net>
References: <20021106135004.A31289@new.gerasimov.net>
Message-ID: <20021106224607.GE23673@linuxmafia.com>

Quoting David Alban (extasia at mindspring.com):

> I'm getting:
> 
>   $ gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys $KEY_ID
>   gpg: requesting key $KEY_ID from pgp.mit.edu ...
>   gpg: can't get key from keyserver: Connection refused
> 
> from two different domains.  Are others running into the same thing?

Yes.  A week or so ago was the first time I've tried to contact that
keyserver in a long time, and that's exactly what I encountered.

So, instead, I used pgp.dtype.org (Drew Streib's server).

-- 
Hi! I'm a .signature virus! Copy me into your ~/.signature  to help me spread.
Hi!p I'm a .signature spread virus! Copy into your ~/.signature to help me
Hilp I'm .sign turepread virus! into your ~/.signature! help me! Copy
Help I'm traped in your ~/signature help me!       -- Joe Slater


From star at starshine.org  Wed Nov  6 14:48:41 2002
From: star at starshine.org (Heather Stern)
Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2002 14:48:41 -0800
Subject: [baylisa] pgp.mit.edu: connection refused
In-Reply-To: <20021106135004.A31289@new.gerasimov.net>
References: <20021106135004.A31289@new.gerasimov.net>
Message-ID: <20021106224841.GA17142@starshine.org>

On Wed, Nov 06, 2002 at 01:50:04PM -0800, David Alban wrote:
> Greetings!
> 
> I'm getting:
> 
>   $ gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys $KEY_ID
>   gpg: requesting key $KEY_ID from pgp.mit.edu ...
>   gpg: can't get key from keyserver: Connection refused
> 
> from two different domains.  Are others running into the same thing?
> 
> I can ping pgp.mit.edu:
> . . .
> from both domains.
> 
> Anyone know why I'm getting connection refused?
> It worked for me a few weeks ago.

Maybe they are doing reverse resolve, didn't update their root hints
lately (that was this week, wasn't it?) and needed to go to the top to
find you, then just *happened* to pick the one whose address has been
renumbered.

Other than that, no idea.

  . | .   Heather Stern                  |         star at starshine.org
--->*<--- Starshine Technical Services - * - consulting at starshine.org
  ' | `   Sysadmin Support and Training  |        (800) 938-4078


From kolya at zepa.net  Wed Nov  6 14:55:42 2002
From: kolya at zepa.net (Nickolai Zeldovich)
Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2002 17:55:42 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [baylisa] pgp.mit.edu: connection refused
In-Reply-To: <20021106135004.A31289@new.gerasimov.net>
Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.33.0211061753140.2996-100000@orbit.zepa.net>

On Wed, 6 Nov 2002, David Alban wrote:

>   $ gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys $KEY_ID
>   gpg: requesting key $KEY_ID from pgp.mit.edu ...
>   gpg: can't get key from keyserver: Connection refused
>
> from two different domains.  Are others running into the same thing?

We just restarted pksd on cryptonomicon.mit.edu (pgp.mit.edu).  File
descriptor leak somewhere, and the server didn't like it when pipe()
failed, and crashed.

-- kolya



From extasia at mindspring.com  Tue Nov 12 02:28:31 2002
From: extasia at mindspring.com (David Alban)
Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2002 02:28:31 -0800
Subject: [baylisa] SIG-BEER-WEST this Saturday 11/16 at 6:00pm in San Francisco
Message-ID: <20021112022831.A10305@new.gerasimov.net>

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1


Everyone needs a little exercise!  Join us as we arm curl full pint
glasses at:


sig-beer-west
Saturday, November 16, 2002 at 6:00pm
San Francisco, CA

Beer.   Mental stimulation.

This event:

  Saturday, 11/16/2002, 6:00pm, at the Toronado, San Francisco

Coming events (third Saturdays):

  Saturday, 12/21/2002, 6:00pm
  Saturday, 01/18/2003, 6:00pm
  Saturday, 02/15/2003, 6:00pm

San Francisco's next social event for computer sysadmins and their
friends, sig-beer-west, will take place on Saturday, November 16,
2002 at the Toronado <http://www.toronado.com> in San Francisco, CA.
The Toronado has an impressive selection of draught
<http://www.toronado.com/draft.htm> and bottled
<http://www.toronado.com/bottles.htm> beer.  Festivities will start at
6:00pm and continue until we've all left.  The Toronado has an
excellent selection of beer, but no food.  It is perfectly okay to
score food from neighboring establishments and bring it back to the
Toronado to eat.  Also, after we are all full with beer we may roam
off to a nearby restaurant.

*Everyone* is welcome at this event.  *We mean it!*  Please feel free
to forward this link <http://www.gerasimov.net/~alban/sig.beer.west.html>
and to invite friends, co-workers, and others who might enjoy lifting
a glass with interesting folks from all over the place.  (Well, O.K.,
you do have to be of legal drinking age to attend.) 

For directions to the Toronado, please use the excellent directions
at their website <http://www.toronado.com/map.htm>.  When you show up
at the Toronado, you should look for some kind of botched
sig-beer-west sign.  We will try to make it obvious who we are. :-)

Note:  Check the tables in the back room for us if you don't see us
       at the tables by the bar.  The back room is back and to the left.

Any Comments, Questions, or Suggestions of Things to Do Later on That
Evening ... email Fiid <fiid AT fiid DOT net> or David
<extasia AT mindspring DOT com>.


sig-beer-west FAQ

  1.  Q: Your announcement says "computer sysadmins and their
         friends".  How do I know if I'm a friend of a computer
         sysadmin?  I don't even know what one is!

      A: You're a friend of a computer sysadmin if you can find the
         *sig-beer-west* sign at this month's *sig-beer-west*. :-)

  2.  Q: I'm not really a beer person.  In fact I'm interested in
         hanging out, but not in drinking.  Would I be welcome?

      A: Absolutely!  The point is to enjoy each others' company.
         Please do join us.

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------

*sig-beer-west* was started when a couple Washington, D.C. based systems
administrators who moved to the San Francisco Bay area wanted to
continue a dc-sage <http://www.dc-sage.org/> tradition, "sig-beer",
which is described in dc-sage web space as:

  SIG-beer, as in "Special Interest Group - Beer" ala ACM, or as in
  "send the BEER signal to that process".

  The original SIG-beer gathering takes place in Washington DC,
  usually on the first Saturday night of the month.

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------


- -- 
Live in a world of your own, but always welcome visitors.
                                 ***
Join us at sig-beer-west!  http://www.gerasimov.net/~alban/sig.beer.west.html
Unix sysadmin available:   http://www.gerasimov.net/~alban/jac/resume.html


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From star at starshine.org  Fri Nov 15 09:59:31 2002
From: star at starshine.org (Heather Stern)
Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2002 09:59:31 -0800
Subject: BayLISA next Thursday! 7:30 pm
Message-ID: <20021115175931.GA8927@starshine.org>


 Hello folks.  Just a little note to remind everyone that the BayLISA 
 meeting is next week... get it into your Day Planners, PDAs with alarm 
 settings, etc. now.

 For that matter, it's a good time to pass the news around the office
 and see if anyone else would like to come hear Dan Farmer.

 The topic is how Time, Memory and Persistence are important when checking 
 the health of your systems.

 We expect a lot of people, so you want to arrive a little earlier than
 7:30 pm (when everything starts) if you'd like a good seat.

 MEMBERSHIPS
   Don't forget your checkbook if your BayLISA membership has expired 
   and you want to vote :) We are offering a $20 discount for any
   renewing or joining member who brings an extra member to join
   BayLISA.
 
   This is an FAQ every year, so I'll catch it now --
	Students: yes, we DO have a discount rate.

 To repeat the details in handy dandy notecard form:
	SPEAKER:  Dan Farmer
	TOPIC:  Time, Memory, Persistence
	TIME:  7:30 pm to 9:30... well, better make that 10 pm.
	WHERE: Incyte Genomics HQ, 3160 Porter Dr, Palo Alto.
		nearest x: Page Mill Rd
		This will be the *LAST* meeting at this location.
		See http://www.baylisa.org/locations/current.html for dir.
	ALSO GOING ON: Board Elections.  Update your membership and vote!
	There will be snacks and lots of fellow sysadmins.

 I'll see you there!

-* Heather Stern * Arch (secretary) BayLISA Board * http://www.baylisa.org/ *-


From star at starshine.org  Fri Nov 15 11:19:56 2002
From: star at starshine.org (Heather Stern)
Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2002 11:19:56 -0800
Subject: BayLISA next thursday, addenda
Message-ID: <20021115191956.GC9133@starshine.org>

I've been asked to clarify...
"""
	I am confused by part of your statement below:	
	"We are offering a $20 discount for any renewing or 
	joining member who brings an extra member to join BayLISA."

	Does this mean we have to bring someone to get the discount 
	or that they have to join?
"""

If the following conditions are met:
	1. you bring an extra person to BayLISA
	2. *and* they join BayLISA as a paid member

Then, you get a $20 discount on your own joining or renewal.

And, the addenda:  If your membership is already current and you don't
wish to renew right away (maybe you joined last month :> ) you can apply
your discount later.  We have the means to save it up for you.

. . . . . 

Companies - we have corporate memberships too;  get your name in lights :)

-* Heather Stern * Arch (secretary) BayLISA Board * http://www.baylisa.org/ *-


From jxh at jxh.com  Fri Nov 15 12:23:30 2002
From: jxh at jxh.com (Jim Hickstein)
Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2002 12:23:30 -0800
Subject: BayLISA next thursday, addenda
In-Reply-To: <20021115191956.GC9133@starshine.org>
References: <20021115191956.GC9133@starshine.org>
Message-ID: <26210000.1037391810@jxh.mirapoint.com>

> And, the addenda:  If your membership is already current and you don't
> wish to renew right away (maybe you joined last month :> ) you can apply
> your discount later.  We have the means to save it up for you.

Do we indeed?  I can see immediately taking another year's fee (minus the 
discount) and pushing out their expiration date by a year, losing no time. 
Even the domain registrars have figured this much out.


From david at catwhisker.org  Sun Nov 17 16:19:25 2002
From: david at catwhisker.org (David Wolfskill)
Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2002 16:19:25 -0800 (PST)
Subject: BIND: limiting recursion just might make things harder for spammers
Message-ID: <200211180019.gAI0JP2v038448@bunrab.catwhisker.org>

A few days ago, when the recent BIND advisories came out, one of the
folks on one of the FreeBSD mailing lists suggested that limiting
permitted recursive queries against one's nameserver to "trusted"
machines -- such as "only the local net" -- would help mitigate the
exposure, and was a good idea in any case.

I generally prefer to take "mere configuration" steps as "triage"
for these sorts of things, and let things settle out for a little
while (often, a day or two) before actually replacing code.  And
in this case, I was planning to upgrade to a more recent snapshot
of FreeBSD-STABLE today in any case (which I've done, as of this
morning), so I figured that limiting recursion would probably be
adequate for my case.  (Most of the exposure, as I understand it,
was in the DNSSEC stuff, and I'm not doing that anyhow.)

After adding

	allow-recursion {
		127.0.0.1;
		172.16.0.0/15;
	};

to the global "options" stanza for named.conf & telling named to re-read
that file, I noticed that I was logging quite a few "denied recursion
for query" messages.  (I use 172.16.0.0/15 for my internal networks, and
the box that does the externally-visible nameservice has FreeBSD's ipfw
set up to (among other things) block all traffic involving RFC 1918 nets
on the external NIC.)

I rather wondered who would be trying to use my nameserver to get
information about some domain other than one for which ns.catwhisker.org
is authoritative, so I did a few WHOIS & DNS queries... and I started
seeing names I have come to associate with spams that I've seen.  For
example:

63.178.112.154		sdn-ar-005nctarbP264.dialsprint.net
167.89.225.99		dsl-sj-167-89-225-99.broadviewnet.net

So I have no idea how much that's affecting the spammers, but I'm fairly
certain that restricting the recursion-allowed queries has not made
their misdeeds any easier ... and that is something I found so
encouraging that I felt compelled to share it with y'all.

Cheers,
david
-- 
David H. Wolfskill				david at catwhisker.org
I have no confidence in results obtained through the use of Microsoft
products.


From dk at farm.org  Sun Nov 17 17:02:27 2002
From: dk at farm.org (Dmitry Kohmanyuk)
Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2002 17:02:27 -0800
Subject: BIND: limiting recursion just might make things harder for spammers
In-Reply-To: <200211180019.gAI0JP2v038448@bunrab.catwhisker.org>; from david@catwhisker.org on Sun, Nov 17, 2002 at 04:19:25PM -0800
References: <200211180019.gAI0JP2v038448@bunrab.catwhisker.org>
Message-ID: <20021117170227.A29596@farm.org>

On Sun, Nov 17, 2002 at 04:19:25PM -0800, David Wolfskill wrote:
> I generally prefer to take "mere configuration" steps as "triage"
> for these sorts of things, and let things settle out for a little
> while (often, a day or two) before actually replacing code.  And
> in this case, I was planning to upgrade to a more recent snapshot
> of FreeBSD-STABLE today in any case (which I've done, as of this
> morning), so I figured that limiting recursion would probably be
> adequate for my case.  (Most of the exposure, as I understand it,
> was in the DNSSEC stuff, and I'm not doing that anyhow.)

	Not sure that FreeBSD -stable has latest bind since the 
	8.3.4 release promised last week as a remedy for this problem 
	only appeared on ftp.isc.org on today's night:

ftp> rstatus
211-isrv4.isc.org FTP server status:
     Version wu-2.6.1(5) Tue Jul 10 12:19:10 PDT 2001
...
211 End of status
ftp> pwd
257 "/isc/bind/src/8.3.4" is current directory.
ftp> ls
227 Entering Passive Mode (204,152,184,27,46,22)
150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for /bin/ls.
total 4420
-rw-rw-r--   1 10132    9996         362 Nov 17 05:35 MD5
-rw-rw-r--   1 10132    9996     1608657 Nov 17 05:35 bind-contrib.tar.gz
-rw-rw-r--   1 10132    9996         366 Nov 17 05:35 bind-contrib.tar.gz.asc
-rw-rw-r--   1 10132    9996     1490246 Nov 17 05:35 bind-doc.tar.gz
-rw-rw-r--   1 10132    9996         366 Nov 17 05:35 bind-doc.tar.gz.asc
-rw-rw-r--   1 10132    9996     1413654 Nov 17 05:35 bind-src.tar.gz
-rw-rw-r--   1 10132    9996         366 Nov 17 05:35 bind-src.tar.gz.asc
226 Transfer complete.

> After adding
> 
> 	allow-recursion {
> 		127.0.0.1;
> 		172.16.0.0/15;
> 	};
> 
> to the global "options" stanza for named.conf & telling named to re-read
> that file, I noticed that I was logging quite a few "denied recursion
> for query" messages.  (I use 172.16.0.0/15 for my internal networks, and
> the box that does the externally-visible nameservice has FreeBSD's ipfw
> set up to (among other things) block all traffic involving RFC 1918 nets
> on the external NIC.)
> 
> I rather wondered who would be trying to use my nameserver to get
> information about some domain other than one for which ns.catwhisker.org
> is authoritative, so I did a few WHOIS & DNS queries... and I started
> seeing names I have come to associate with spams that I've seen.  For
> example:
> 
> 63.178.112.154		sdn-ar-005nctarbP264.dialsprint.net
> 167.89.225.99		dsl-sj-167-89-225-99.broadviewnet.net

	you can enable query logging to see which names they are trying to resolve...
	but be careful - logs can fill up pretty quickly so I advice to either set up
	a separate logging channel for this (with size limit and rotation) or just
	do it for few hours.

On related note of BIND security, I found that using some unreachable host in
first field of SOA record helps to eliminate those annoying `denied update' messages
from win2k clients.  (I know it's not a perfect behaviour - but neither is using dynamic
updates by default.)  For example:

ua                  	SOA	updates-denied.kolo.net domain-master.nic.net.ua (
			2002111600	;serial (version)
			28800	;refresh period (8 hours)
			7200	;retry interval (2 hours)
			3024000	;expire time (5 weeks)
			86400	;default ttl (1 day)
			)





From wolfgang+gnus20021117T172840 at wsrcc.com  Sun Nov 17 17:38:26 2002
From: wolfgang+gnus20021117T172840 at wsrcc.com (Wolfgang Rupprecht)
Date: 17 Nov 2002 17:38:26 -0800
Subject: BIND: limiting recursion just might make things harder for spammers
References: <200211180019.gAI0JP2v038448@bunrab.catwhisker.org>
Message-ID: <x7y97ry7vx.fsf@capsicum.wsrcc.com>


david at catwhisker.org (David Wolfskill) writes:
> 63.178.112.154		sdn-ar-005nctarbP264.dialsprint.net
> 167.89.225.99		dsl-sj-167-89-225-99.broadviewnet.net
> 
> So I have no idea how much that's affecting the spammers, but I'm fairly
> certain that restricting the recursion-allowed queries has not made
> their misdeeds any easier ... and that is something I found so
> encouraging that I felt compelled to share it with y'all.

Some hit-n-run spammers will not have a full time nameserver.  What
they do is setup a temporary primary and then unbeknownst to the
victims with recursive servers, elect them to be their secondaries.
Unless they log the traffic, they probably never realize that they are
serving up some spammer's domain to the rest of the world.

If you see this happening, you could have a bunch of fun with them by
editing up a zone file for them with a TTL of ETERNITY-1, and point
all the A-records to 127.0.0.1 (or some other server of your
choosing.)  Be sure to increment the serial number to some very high
number (eg. just a tad under 2 gig ;-)) for added fun.  It won't be
long before the other victim nameservers pick up your new zone and all
traffic to the spammer's domain ceases.

-wolfgang
-- 
We are from the U.N. and we are here to help you.

spider food: http://www.wsrcc.com/baddream/usenet/
(NOTE: The email address above is valid.  Edit it at your own peril.)



From rick at linuxmafia.com  Sun Nov 17 19:12:23 2002
From: rick at linuxmafia.com (Rick Moen)
Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2002 19:12:23 -0800
Subject: BIND: limiting recursion just might make things harder for spammers
In-Reply-To: <20021117170227.A29596@farm.org>
References: <200211180019.gAI0JP2v038448@bunrab.catwhisker.org> <20021117170227.A29596@farm.org>
Message-ID: <20021118031223.GO28592@linuxmafia.com>

Quoting Dmitry Kohmanyuk (dk at farm.org):

> Not sure that FreeBSD -stable has latest bind since the 8.3.4 release
> promised last week as a remedy for this problem only appeared on
> ftp.isc.org on today's night:

Note that FreeBSD-stable (4.7) has BIND 9.2.1 as a package -- in
addition to the vulnerable 8.3.3 package.  The security advisory was
(predictably enough) for BIND4/BIND8, not the BIND9 from-scratch
rewrite.  If anyone has a compelling reason to run BIND8 on *ix at this
late date, I haven't heard it (well, except your zonefiles being so
syntax-error-ridden that BIND9 rejects them).

There are also packages for Maradns 1.0.06 and Mydns 0.9.1, either of
which one might reasonable consider, instead.

-- 
Cheers,                                      "Reality is not optional."
Rick Moen                                             -- Thomas Sowell
rick at linuxmafia.com


From chuck+baylisa at snew.com  Sun Nov 17 19:16:36 2002
From: chuck+baylisa at snew.com (Chuck Yerkes)
Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2002 19:16:36 -0800
Subject: BIND: limiting recursion just might make things harder for spammers
In-Reply-To: <20021118031223.GO28592@linuxmafia.com>; from rick@linuxmafia.com on Sun, Nov 17, 2002 at 07:12:23PM -0800
References: <200211180019.gAI0JP2v038448@bunrab.catwhisker.org> <20021117170227.A29596@farm.org> <20021118031223.GO28592@linuxmafia.com>
Message-ID: <20021117191636.D27221@snew.com>

BIND 9 good.
BIND 9 friend.
Chuck like BIND 9.

That said, BIND 4 is faster than BIND 8 is faster than BIND 9.1.x was.
At least on single CPU machines.  Measurements were in an excessively
high volume mail situation (100's of thousands/hour).  Not spam :)

Quoting Rick Moen (rick at linuxmafia.com):
> Quoting Dmitry Kohmanyuk (dk at farm.org):
> 
> > Not sure that FreeBSD -stable has latest bind since the 8.3.4 release
> > promised last week as a remedy for this problem only appeared on
> > ftp.isc.org on today's night:
> 
> Note that FreeBSD-stable (4.7) has BIND 9.2.1 as a package -- in
> addition to the vulnerable 8.3.3 package.  The security advisory was
> (predictably enough) for BIND4/BIND8, not the BIND9 from-scratch
> rewrite.  If anyone has a compelling reason to run BIND8 on *ix at this
> late date, I haven't heard it (well, except your zonefiles being so
> syntax-error-ridden that BIND9 rejects them).
> 
> There are also packages for Maradns 1.0.06 and Mydns 0.9.1, either of
> which one might reasonable consider, instead.
> 
> -- 
> Cheers,                                      "Reality is not optional."
> Rick Moen                                             -- Thomas Sowell
> rick at linuxmafia.com


From rick at linuxmafia.com  Sun Nov 17 20:24:01 2002
From: rick at linuxmafia.com (Rick Moen)
Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2002 20:24:01 -0800
Subject: BIND: limiting recursion just might make things harder for spammers
In-Reply-To: <20021117191636.D27221@snew.com>
References: <200211180019.gAI0JP2v038448@bunrab.catwhisker.org> <20021117170227.A29596@farm.org> <20021118031223.GO28592@linuxmafia.com> <20021117191636.D27221@snew.com>
Message-ID: <20021118042401.GP28592@linuxmafia.com>

Quoting Chuck Yerkes (chuck+baylisa at snew.com):

> BIND 9 good.
> BIND 9 friend.
> Chuck like BIND 9.
> 
> That said, BIND 4 is faster than BIND 8 is faster than BIND 9.1.x was.

A good point.  

I wish MaraDNS and MyDNS were more extensively torture-tested, since 
both make BIND4 look sluggish by comparison.  Meanwhile, for high-load
sites, the OpenBSD variant of BIND4 has been doing a damned good job 
at plugging the incessant holes in that codebase (and runs it chrooted).

-- 
Cheers,                        The Technical Support Credo:  
Rick Moen                      Remember, there _are_ no stupid questions, 
rick at linuxmafia.com            only stupid people asking questions.


From star at starshine.org  Mon Nov 18 09:36:19 2002
From: star at starshine.org (Heather Stern)
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 09:36:19 -0800
Subject: BIND: limiting recursion just might make things harder for spammers
In-Reply-To: <20021118031223.GO28592@linuxmafia.com>
References: <200211180019.gAI0JP2v038448@bunrab.catwhisker.org> <20021117170227.A29596@farm.org> <20021118031223.GO28592@linuxmafia.com>
Message-ID: <20021118173619.GB1769@starshine.org>

On Sun, Nov 17, 2002 at 07:12:23PM -0800, Rick Moen wrote:
> There are also packages for Maradns 1.0.06 and Mydns 0.9.1, either of
> which one might reasonable consider, instead.

I've not played with mydns, but the maradns packages for debian come 
with sample configs where zone updates are naturally restricted;  it
used to be that it didn't even *do* recursion, so it might default to
entirely off.

  . | .   Heather Stern                  |         star at starshine.org
--->*<--- Starshine Technical Services - * - consulting at starshine.org
  ' | `   Sysadmin Support and Training  |        (800) 938-4078


From mallen at byte-me.org  Mon Nov 18 09:37:24 2002
From: mallen at byte-me.org (Mark Allen)
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 09:37:24 -0800
Subject: BIND: limiting recursion just might make things harder for spammers
In-Reply-To: <20021118042401.GP28592@linuxmafia.com>; from rick@linuxmafia.com on Sun, Nov 17, 2002 at 08:24:01PM -0800
References: <200211180019.gAI0JP2v038448@bunrab.catwhisker.org> <20021117170227.A29596@farm.org> <20021118031223.GO28592@linuxmafia.com> <20021117191636.D27221@snew.com> <20021118042401.GP28592@linuxmafia.com>
Message-ID: <20021118093724.A27506@sephiroth.byte-me.org>

On Sun, Nov 17, 2002 at 08:24:01PM -0800, Rick Moen wrote:
> the OpenBSD variant of BIND4 has been doing a damned good job 
> at plugging the incessant holes in that codebase (and runs it chrooted).

Generally true and chrooting is good, especially for BIND 4. :)

I wanted to note that OBSD's BIND had the same problem as the ISC
"canonical" version. I just rebuilt BIND on our OBSD box from the stable 
OpenBSD patch branch on Friday.

:)

Mark
-- 
Mark Allen -- mallen at byte-me.org -- http://www.byte-me.org/~mallen/
PGP: 0x5CDC2161 Mark Allen (Personal Key) <mallen at byte-me.org> 
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From rick at linuxmafia.com  Mon Nov 18 10:10:21 2002
From: rick at linuxmafia.com (Rick Moen)
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 10:10:21 -0800
Subject: BIND: limiting recursion just might make things harder for spammers
In-Reply-To: <20021118093724.A27506@sephiroth.byte-me.org>
References: <200211180019.gAI0JP2v038448@bunrab.catwhisker.org> <20021117170227.A29596@farm.org> <20021118031223.GO28592@linuxmafia.com> <20021117191636.D27221@snew.com> <20021118042401.GP28592@linuxmafia.com> <20021118093724.A27506@sephiroth.byte-me.org>
Message-ID: <20021118181021.GW28592@linuxmafia.com>

Quoting Mark Allen (mallen at byte-me.org):

> I wanted to note that OBSD's BIND had the same problem as the ISC
> "canonical" version. I just rebuilt BIND on our OBSD box from the stable 
> OpenBSD patch branch on Friday.

Yes, they warned, at the time of the advisory, that it was probably
true.  (They also said that the chrooting made it unlikely that the bug
could be exploited, though I'm not sure what the outcome of that was.)

-- 
Cheers,                     "All power is delightful, but absolute power
Rick Moen                    is absolutely delightful."  - Kenneth Tynan
rick at linuxmafia.com


From rick at linuxmafia.com  Mon Nov 18 10:26:55 2002
From: rick at linuxmafia.com (Rick Moen)
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 10:26:55 -0800
Subject: BIND: limiting recursion just might make things harder for spammers
In-Reply-To: <20021118173619.GB1769@starshine.org>
References: <200211180019.gAI0JP2v038448@bunrab.catwhisker.org> <20021117170227.A29596@farm.org> <20021118031223.GO28592@linuxmafia.com> <20021118173619.GB1769@starshine.org>
Message-ID: <20021118182655.GX28592@linuxmafia.com>

Quoting Heather Stern (star at starshine.org):

> I've not played with mydns, but the maradns packages for debian come 
> with sample configs where zone updates are naturally restricted;  it
> used to be that it didn't even *do* recursion, so it might default to
> entirely off.

I've only now started playing with MaraDNS on a secondary machine, but 
note the following from the MaraDNS FAQ, http://www.maradns.org/faq.html:

o  The main program does recursive and authoritative service.
o  Separate module "zoneserver" serves up zones to secondaries.  There's
   a tip in FAQ item #23 about ensuring that BIND picks them up.
o  Separate module "getzone" receives zones from primaries.
o  Recursive queries may not be arriving within the default 2 second
   limit.  Add "timeout_seconds = 5" to the mararc file.  (Too high,
   and MaraDNS blocks on unreachable nameservers.)

-- 
Cheers,              "The front line of defense against such sophisticated 
Rick Moen            viruses is a continually evolving computer operating 
rick at linuxmafia.com  system that attracts the efforts of eager software
                     developers."  -- Bill Gates         


From rjwitte at rjwitte.com  Wed Nov 20 23:54:34 2002
From: rjwitte at rjwitte.com (Russel J. Witte)
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 23:54:34 -0800
Subject: Ride from / to Alameda/Oakland ...
In-Reply-To: <B0000485922@vljcms04.ucmretail.internal.callsciences.com>
Message-ID: <HEEMKGJDBMHGLNPAFEJFAEOECEAA.rjwitte@rjwitte.com>

Anyone planning on going to the baylisa meeting tonight? I'd love to car
pool if someone is heading that way.

Thanks.

Russ



From star at starshine.org  Thu Nov 21 09:29:41 2002
From: star at starshine.org (Heather Stern)
Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 09:29:41 -0800
Subject: BayLISA *tonight* Incyte HQ, 7:30pm
Message-ID: <20021121172941.GA954@starshine.org>


  Greetings everybody and welcome.  Especially this month, absolutely
  everyone is welcome at our Third Thursday BayLISA meeting.  We like to
  have a big crowd for our Board elections.

	TONIGHT, 7:30 pm to 9:30... or so... maybe 10 pm

  Speaker	Dan Farmer

  Topic		/tmp: Time, Memory, Persistence

  Bring:	you, colleagues, friends, anyone interested in security
		at a scale that needs logfiles (almost everyone these
		days) ...

  We will have snacks and sodas, never fear.  Want a pint glass?  :>
  It's perfectly fine to arrive up to a half hour early.

  Membership Drive!
		$20 off your membership when you encourage someone else
		to come -and- they join BayLISA there

		Student Discount

		You have to be a member to vote for the Board elections.

  Where		STILL at Incyte Genomics HQ.  
		2160 Porter Drive, Palo Alto
		nearest x-streets: Page Mill Road and Porter Drive.

	cheap ascii map, not to correct angle or scale
                  
	S.F. <==== 101 =====+============> San Jose'
                            |Page
                            |Mill
        ----El Camino Real--+----------------------
                            |
                            :
                            :
                            |         )
                            +--Porter'
                            |   x
                            |
        ====================+======Foothill Exp=====
                            |
        === 280 ============+=======================

		and we still have Incyte Genomics' directions linked
		at http://www.baylisa.org/locations/current.html.




From star at starshine.org  Thu Nov 21 10:18:23 2002
From: star at starshine.org (Heather Stern)
Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 10:18:23 -0800
Subject: Meeting addenda
Message-ID: <20021121181823.GA1135@starshine.org>


  Meetings are free and open to the public.  Just thought I'd mention
  that.  You only need to be a member to vote, to get member benefits,
  or 'cuz you really like what we do each month. 

-* Heather Stern * Arch (secretary) BayLISA Board * http://www.baylisa.org/ *-


From extasia at mindspring.com  Sun Nov 24 17:44:38 2002
From: extasia at mindspring.com (David Alban)
Date: Sun, 24 Nov 2002 17:44:38 -0800
Subject: Monitor free to good home
Message-ID: <20021124174438.A12224@new.gerasimov.net>

Greetings!

A few months back I came across an ancient 21" (I think) sgi
color monitor.  It's a big'un.  I couldn't get it to work with my
Indy or linux pc, so I don't know if the monitor is functional.  It
looked like what happens when X isn't configured exacly correctly.  You
could tell it was trying to display, but there were distortions such
that it wasn't usable with the Indy or the pc.

At any rate.  I'm looking to donate it to someone.  Anyone
interested?  I'd be willing to deliver.

It's a model CM2086A3SG manufactured in February 1990.

Who says TANSTAAFL?

David
-- 
Live in a world of your own, but always welcome visitors.
                                 ***
Join us at sig-beer-west!  http://www.gerasimov.net/~alban/sig.beer.west.html
Unix sysadmin available:   http://www.gerasimov.net/~alban/jac/resume.html
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From marc_news at merlins.org  Sun Nov 24 22:40:36 2002
From: marc_news at merlins.org (Marc MERLIN)
Date: Sun, 24 Nov 2002 22:40:36 -0800
Subject: BIND: limiting recursion just might make things harder for spammers
In-Reply-To: <20021118093724.A27506@sephiroth.byte-me.org>
References: <200211180019.gAI0JP2v038448@bunrab.catwhisker.org> <20021117170227.A29596@farm.org> <20021118031223.GO28592@linuxmafia.com> <20021117191636.D27221@snew.com> <20021118042401.GP28592@linuxmafia.com> <20021118093724.A27506@sephiroth.byte-me.org>
Message-ID: <20021125064036.GD25599@merlins.org>

On Mon, Nov 18, 2002 at 09:37:24AM -0800, Mark Allen wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 17, 2002 at 08:24:01PM -0800, Rick Moen wrote:
> > the OpenBSD variant of BIND4 has been doing a damned good job 
> > at plugging the incessant holes in that codebase (and runs it chrooted).
> 
> Generally true and chrooting is good, especially for BIND 4. :)

If memory serves, Bind 4 runs as root.
As a result, the chroot is mostly useless unless you run grsecurity and
you have configured it accordingly
For that matter, I remember a bind exploit that would escape a chroot
jail before doing anything else.

Marc
-- 
"A mouse is a device used to point at the xterm you want to type in" - A.S.R.
Microsoft is to operating systems & security ....
                                      .... what McDonalds is to gourmet cooking 
Home page: http://marc.merlins.org/   |   Finger marc_f at merlins.org for PGP key
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From marc_news at merlins.org  Mon Nov 25 07:08:02 2002
From: marc_news at merlins.org (Marc MERLIN)
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2002 07:08:02 -0800
Subject: Monitor free to good home
In-Reply-To: <20021124174438.A12224@new.gerasimov.net>
References: <20021124174438.A12224@new.gerasimov.net>
Message-ID: <20021125150802.GH25599@merlins.org>

On Sun, Nov 24, 2002 at 05:44:38PM -0800, David Alban wrote:
> A few months back I came across an ancient 21" (I think) sgi
> color monitor.  It's a big'un.  I couldn't get it to work with my
> Indy or linux pc, so I don't know if the monitor is functional.  It

Come to think of it, I have a sun monitor in a similar condition :-)
It has the 10pin+3 mini bnc connector

You're welcome to take it off my hands.

Marc
-- 
"A mouse is a device used to point at the xterm you want to type in" - A.S.R.
Microsoft is to operating systems & security ....
                                      .... what McDonalds is to gourmet cooking 
Home page: http://marc.merlins.org/   |   Finger marc_f at merlins.org for PGP key



From jxh at jxh.com  Tue Nov 26 10:06:15 2002
From: jxh at jxh.com (Jim Hickstein)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 10:06:15 -0800
Subject: Need Sun RJ-45 console cable
Message-ID: <11510000.1038333975@jxh.mirapoint.com>

A Sun Fire V120 showed up at my site, naturally with zero supporting cables 
or documentation.  Naturally, it doesn't respond to ping.  Can anyone loan 
me an X6973A Serial Connector Kit for a week or so, until the owners of the 
machine can send their copy from France?

It appears in:

 http://sunsolve.sun.com/handbook_pub/Systems/SunFireV120/components.html#E
XPL

but I'd be grateful for any other information from those who have 
experience with Sun's new foray into using everyone's favorite connector to 
overload yet another function onto it.  Does it use the same pinout as 
anyone _else's_ RS-232 mapping?  Cisco, say, or Digi?  What are the chances 
I can go straight into a Digi console server?  (Yeah, right.)  Is it a DTE 
or a DCE?  Is the pinout documented anywhere?  (My FEHB is way out of date.)

Thanks for any info and/or parts.

-Jim


From chuck+baylisa at snew.com  Tue Nov 26 10:28:55 2002
From: chuck+baylisa at snew.com (Chuck Yerkes)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 10:28:55 -0800
Subject: Need Sun RJ-45 console cable
In-Reply-To: <11510000.1038333975@jxh.mirapoint.com>; from jxh@jxh.com on Tue, Nov 26, 2002 at 10:06:15AM -0800
References: <11510000.1038333975@jxh.mirapoint.com>
Message-ID: <20021126102855.B27581@snew.com>

It's a cisco pinned connector.  Easy enough.
I took a T3 disk array with a zero doc RJ-11(!) console.  Crimped
wires into a plug and shoved them into pins 2 and 3 of a nearby
serial port to get it to work.  I had always wondered why Sun DB-25
serial ports were female.  Now I know.  Try it and frighten your
co-workers.


Quoting Jim Hickstein (jxh at jxh.com):
> A Sun Fire V120 showed up at my site, naturally with zero supporting cables 
> or documentation.  Naturally, it doesn't respond to ping.  Can anyone loan 
> me an X6973A Serial Connector Kit for a week or so, until the owners of the 
> machine can send their copy from France?
> 
> It appears in:
> 
>  http://sunsolve.sun.com/handbook_pub/Systems/SunFireV120/components.html#E
> XPL
> 
> but I'd be grateful for any other information from those who have 
> experience with Sun's new foray into using everyone's favorite connector to 
> overload yet another function onto it.  Does it use the same pinout as 
> anyone _else's_ RS-232 mapping?  Cisco, say, or Digi?  What are the chances 
> I can go straight into a Digi console server?  (Yeah, right.)  Is it a DTE 
> or a DCE?  Is the pinout documented anywhere?  (My FEHB is way out of date.)
> 
> Thanks for any info and/or parts.
> 
> -Jim


From ulf at Alameda.net  Tue Nov 26 10:36:52 2002
From: ulf at Alameda.net (Ulf Zimmermann)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 10:36:52 -0800
Subject: Need Sun RJ-45 console cable
In-Reply-To: <11510000.1038333975@jxh.mirapoint.com>; from jxh@jxh.com on Tue, Nov 26, 2002 at 10:06:15AM -0800
References: <11510000.1038333975@jxh.mirapoint.com>
Message-ID: <20021126103652.A27994@seven.alameda.net>

On Tue, Nov 26, 2002 at 10:06:15AM -0800, Jim Hickstein wrote:
> A Sun Fire V120 showed up at my site, naturally with zero supporting cables 
> or documentation.  Naturally, it doesn't respond to ping.  Can anyone loan 
> me an X6973A Serial Connector Kit for a week or so, until the owners of the 
> machine can send their copy from France?
> 
> It appears in:
> 
>  http://sunsolve.sun.com/handbook_pub/Systems/SunFireV120/components.html#E
> XPL
> 
> but I'd be grateful for any other information from those who have 
> experience with Sun's new foray into using everyone's favorite connector to 
> overload yet another function onto it.  Does it use the same pinout as 
> anyone _else's_ RS-232 mapping?  Cisco, say, or Digi?  What are the chances 
> I can go straight into a Digi console server?  (Yeah, right.)  Is it a DTE 
> or a DCE?  Is the pinout documented anywhere?  (My FEHB is way out of date.)
> 
> Thanks for any info and/or parts.
> 
> -Jim

If you have a cisco with an aux port or any other serial port you can
use (RJ45 type), just use the blue or black rolled cable (pin 1 to 8,
pin 2 to 7, etc.)

Works like a charm for Suns with RJ45 consoles.

-- 
Regards, Ulf.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Ulf Zimmermann, 1525 Pacific Ave., Alameda, CA-94501, #: 510-865-0204
You can find my resume at: http://seven.Alameda.net/~ulf/resume.html


From moazam.raja at sun.com  Tue Nov 26 10:41:52 2002
From: moazam.raja at sun.com (Moazam Raja)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 10:41:52 -0800
Subject: Need Sun RJ-45 console cable
References: <11510000.1038333975@jxh.mirapoint.com>
Message-ID: <3DE3C070.4000507@sun.com>

You can create your own cable very quickly by getting the parts from Frys.

Instructions/specs are at:

http://www.sun.com/products-n-solutions/hardware/docs/pdf/816-2090-10.pdf

Pages 6-6 to 6-9. I used the instructions on page 6-8 to create a RJ45 
to DB9 serial adapter for my laptop.

-Moazam


Jim Hickstein wrote:

> A Sun Fire V120 showed up at my site, naturally with zero supporting 
> cables or documentation. Naturally, it doesn't respond to ping. Can 
> anyone loan me an X6973A Serial Connector Kit for a week or so, until 
> the owners of the machine can send their copy from France?
>
> It appears in:
>
> http://sunsolve.sun.com/handbook_pub/Systems/SunFireV120/components.html#E 
>
> XPL
>
> but I'd be grateful for any other information from those who have 
> experience with Sun's new foray into using everyone's favorite 
> connector to overload yet another function onto it. Does it use the 
> same pinout as anyone _else's_ RS-232 mapping? Cisco, say, or Digi? 
> What are the chances I can go straight into a Digi console server? 
> (Yeah, right.) Is it a DTE or a DCE? Is the pinout documented 
> anywhere? (My FEHB is way out of date.)
>
> Thanks for any info and/or parts.
>
> -Jim






From ulf at Alameda.net  Tue Nov 26 11:07:13 2002
From: ulf at Alameda.net (Ulf Zimmermann)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 11:07:13 -0800
Subject: Need Sun RJ-45 console cable
In-Reply-To: <3DE3C070.4000507@sun.com>; from moazam.raja@sun.com on Tue, Nov 26, 2002 at 10:41:52AM -0800
References: <11510000.1038333975@jxh.mirapoint.com> <3DE3C070.4000507@sun.com>
Message-ID: <20021126110713.B27994@seven.alameda.net>

On Tue, Nov 26, 2002 at 10:41:52AM -0800, Moazam Raja wrote:
> You can create your own cable very quickly by getting the parts from Frys.
> 
> Instructions/specs are at:
> 
> http://www.sun.com/products-n-solutions/hardware/docs/pdf/816-2090-10.pdf
> 
> Pages 6-6 to 6-9. I used the instructions on page 6-8 to create a RJ45 
> to DB9 serial adapter for my laptop.
> 
> -Moazam

And I just unpacked a Sun V100 .... it had RJ45-DB9 and RJ45-DB25 adapters
included.

> 
> 
> Jim Hickstein wrote:
> 
> > A Sun Fire V120 showed up at my site, naturally with zero supporting 
> > cables or documentation. Naturally, it doesn't respond to ping. Can 
> > anyone loan me an X6973A Serial Connector Kit for a week or so, until 
> > the owners of the machine can send their copy from France?
> >
> > It appears in:
> >
> > http://sunsolve.sun.com/handbook_pub/Systems/SunFireV120/components.html#E 
> >
> > XPL
> >
> > but I'd be grateful for any other information from those who have 
> > experience with Sun's new foray into using everyone's favorite 
> > connector to overload yet another function onto it. Does it use the 
> > same pinout as anyone _else's_ RS-232 mapping? Cisco, say, or Digi? 
> > What are the chances I can go straight into a Digi console server? 
> > (Yeah, right.) Is it a DTE or a DCE? Is the pinout documented 
> > anywhere? (My FEHB is way out of date.)
> >
> > Thanks for any info and/or parts.
> >
> > -Jim
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 

-- 
Regards, Ulf.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Ulf Zimmermann, 1525 Pacific Ave., Alameda, CA-94501, #: 510-865-0204
You can find my resume at: http://seven.Alameda.net/~ulf/resume.html


From jxh at jxh.com  Tue Nov 26 12:04:53 2002
From: jxh at jxh.com (Jim Hickstein)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 12:04:53 -0800
Subject: Need Sun RJ-45 console cable
In-Reply-To: <20021126102855.B27581@snew.com>
References: <11510000.1038333975@jxh.mirapoint.com>
 <20021126102855.B27581@snew.com>
Message-ID: <3410000.1038341093@jxh.mirapoint.com>

--On Tuesday, November 26, 2002 10:28:55 -0800 Chuck Yerkes 
<chuck+baylisa at snew.com> wrote:

> It's a cisco pinned connector.  Easy enough.

For such as we, yes.  That did the trick, anyway.  Thanks!

Without a working knowledge of RS-232 and a handy supply of Cisco 
part-number adapters (if not Sun), my supplicant would have and remained 
screwed.  He knows this, now.

> I took a T3 disk array with a zero doc RJ-11(!) console.  Crimped
> wires into a plug and shoved them into pins 2 and 3 of a nearby
> serial port to get it to work.  I had always wondered why Sun DB-25
> serial ports were female.  Now I know.  Try it and frighten your
> co-workers.

They were female because they decided against following the standard, which 
is quite clear: DTEs are MALE, DCEs female.  Only DEC, IBM, and HP, to my 
knowledge, ever actually adhered to this.  Shame on everyone else.


From jxh at jxh.com  Tue Nov 26 12:11:46 2002
From: jxh at jxh.com (Jim Hickstein)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 12:11:46 -0800
Subject: Need Sun RJ-45 console cable
In-Reply-To: <20021126102855.B27581@snew.com>
References: <11510000.1038333975@jxh.mirapoint.com>
 <20021126102855.B27581@snew.com>
Message-ID: <5030000.1038341506@jxh.mirapoint.com>

Oh, and it's a DE-9[PS], not DB-9.  The "B" or "E" (or A, C, D) is the 
shell size.  Go look at a Cannon/ITT catalog under "D subminiature 
connector".  A DB-9 would have a lot of empty space.  DA-15, DB-25, DC-37, 
DD-50, DE-9, plus some other pin configurations in various shell sizes like 
the B-sized 13W3.  P for Plug, i.e. male pins, S for Socket, female pins.

On this one, nobody even has the lame excuse that the standard (EIA RS-232) 
costs money to buy.  Cannon gives out catalogs for free.

But don't get me started. :-)


From jxh at jxh.com  Tue Nov 26 13:09:34 2002
From: jxh at jxh.com (Jim Hickstein)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 13:09:34 -0800
Subject: Sun CD-ROM problems
Message-ID: <10530000.1038344974@jxh.mirapoint.com>

OK, that was good.  Let's try another one. (Sorry for the traffic, but 
we've always said we wanted this list to be a place to go for answers, and 
today I have two problems.)

I have this Sun Ultra-10, missing a CD-ROM drive.  Guy gave it back to 
saying he could never get an OS loaded. (OK, maybe it's him.)  Stuff in one 
of the PC-type POS 50x EIDE drives, disk spins up and down and up and down 
and up and down and it boots, sort of, but takes forever.  Two or three 
drives did the same thing.

I've got my finger on a Sun part number drive on eBay.  32x this time. 
What are the chances this will fix anything?  Do I have a bad controller? 
A mechanically bad CD?  (Several do the same thing.)  Have I just thrown 
away fifty bucks on eBay?  (Again? :-)


From ulf at Alameda.net  Tue Nov 26 13:34:17 2002
From: ulf at Alameda.net (Ulf Zimmermann)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 13:34:17 -0800
Subject: Sun CD-ROM problems
In-Reply-To: <10530000.1038344974@jxh.mirapoint.com>; from jxh@jxh.com on Tue, Nov 26, 2002 at 01:09:34PM -0800
References: <10530000.1038344974@jxh.mirapoint.com>
Message-ID: <20021126133417.E27994@seven.alameda.net>

On Tue, Nov 26, 2002 at 01:09:34PM -0800, Jim Hickstein wrote:
> OK, that was good.  Let's try another one. (Sorry for the traffic, but 
> we've always said we wanted this list to be a place to go for answers, and 
> today I have two problems.)
> 
> I have this Sun Ultra-10, missing a CD-ROM drive.  Guy gave it back to 
> saying he could never get an OS loaded. (OK, maybe it's him.)  Stuff in one 
> of the PC-type POS 50x EIDE drives, disk spins up and down and up and down 
> and up and down and it boots, sort of, but takes forever.  Two or three 
> drives did the same thing.
> 
> I've got my finger on a Sun part number drive on eBay.  32x this time. 
> What are the chances this will fix anything?  Do I have a bad controller? 
> A mechanically bad CD?  (Several do the same thing.)  Have I just thrown 
> away fifty bucks on eBay?  (Again? :-)

ex-coworker of me used a Dell cdrom from a PC (some 40x drive or so).
Attached it to an x1 to load software. worked without a problem. So
my guess would be, possible back controller.

But ... the sun has two channels, have you tried the cdrom on the first
channel together with the disk ?

-- 
Regards, Ulf.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Ulf Zimmermann, 1525 Pacific Ave., Alameda, CA-94501, #: 510-865-0204
You can find my resume at: http://seven.Alameda.net/~ulf/resume.html


From jxh at jxh.com  Tue Nov 26 13:46:53 2002
From: jxh at jxh.com (Jim Hickstein)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 13:46:53 -0800
Subject: Sun CD-ROM problems
In-Reply-To: <20021126133417.E27994@seven.alameda.net>
References: <10530000.1038344974@jxh.mirapoint.com>
 <20021126133417.E27994@seven.alameda.net>
Message-ID: <17200000.1038347213@jxh.mirapoint.com>

> But ... the sun has two channels, have you tried the cdrom on the first
> channel together with the disk ?

Hmmm!  But "boot cdrom" worked on this cable.  We did have to strap it as a 
master....

Privately, a couple people mentioned:

Jumpstart: Yes, but I want to have a local drive in the long run.  It's not 
so much that I want to have Solaris running, as that I want to be sure this 
machine is alive or dead, one or the other.  If "dead", it goes in the 
garage sale.

Block length: That's for SCSI CD-ROMs IIRC.  And this one boots, just 
rather slowly and with lots of spinning up and down.  I'll go try my 
Solaris 7 CD and see if it's rounder.


From bill at wards.net  Tue Nov 26 15:05:55 2002
From: bill at wards.net (William R Ward)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 15:05:55 -0800
Subject: Need Sun RJ-45 console cable
In-Reply-To: <3410000.1038341093@jxh.mirapoint.com>
References: <11510000.1038333975@jxh.mirapoint.com>
	<20021126102855.B27581@snew.com>
	<3410000.1038341093@jxh.mirapoint.com>
Message-ID: <15843.65107.738381.511122@komodo.home.wards.net>

Jim Hickstein writes:
>--On Tuesday, November 26, 2002 10:28:55 -0800 Chuck Yerkes 
><chuck+baylisa at snew.com> wrote:
>
>> It's a cisco pinned connector.  Easy enough.
>
>For such as we, yes.  That did the trick, anyway.  Thanks!
>
>Without a working knowledge of RS-232 and a handy supply of Cisco 
>part-number adapters (if not Sun), my supplicant would have and remained 
>screwed.  He knows this, now.
>
>> I took a T3 disk array with a zero doc RJ-11(!) console.  Crimped
>> wires into a plug and shoved them into pins 2 and 3 of a nearby
>> serial port to get it to work.  I had always wondered why Sun DB-25
>> serial ports were female.  Now I know.  Try it and frighten your
>> co-workers.
>
>They were female because they decided against following the standard, which 
>is quite clear: DTEs are MALE, DCEs female.  Only DEC, IBM, and HP, to my 
>knowledge, ever actually adhered to this.  Shame on everyone else.

For those who don't remember the RS-232 acronyms, here's a translation
of what he just said...
    DTE = Data Terminal Equipment (e.g. a terminal, teletype, etc.)
    DCE = Data Communciations Equipment (e.g. modem, etc.)

It's true that almost all terminal manufacturers failed to follow the
standard, and produced terminals with female connectors - except DEC,
IBM, and HP (DEC I knew; I never worked with IBM or HP terminals but
I'll take your word for it).

The trouble came when they started making computer workstations that
can serve either as a terminal or as something you plug a terminal
into.

IBM stuck with the DTE interpretation for their PC's (and hence modern
PC's), as there wasn't much call for hooking a terminal up to an MSDOS
box.  However I would argue that Sun was justified in using female
ports.  They probably figured they were DCE's, because you could hook
a terminal up to a Sun workstation.  This was done to allow many
people to log in to the Sun at once, and/or for a serial console for
those who didn't need (think server) or couldn't afford the expensive
optional video hardware.  Anyway, Suns were suppposed to be networked
(remember, "SUN" was named for "Stanford University Network") so why
plug a modem into one?

Quaere: what gender DB-25's did Macs have?  I think the current Macs
don't have them at all, but I seem to recall the early ones did.  And
I think it was female, in which case shame on them, but I'm not sure.

--Bill.

-- 
William R Ward            bill at wards.net          http://www.wards.net/~bill/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Consistency is not really a human trait.
                         --Maude (from the film "Harold & Maude")


From woolsey at jlw.com  Tue Nov 26 15:37:35 2002
From: woolsey at jlw.com (Jeff Woolsey)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 15:37:35 -0800
Subject: Need Sun RJ-45 console cable 
In-Reply-To: Message from bill@wards.net (William R Ward) 
   of "Tue, 26 Nov 2002 15:05:55 PST." <15843.65107.738381.511122@komodo.home.wards.net> 
Message-ID: <200211262337.PAA13995@arglebargle.jlw.com>

> Quaere: what gender DB-25's did Macs have?  I think the current Macs
> don't have them at all, but I seem to recall the early ones did.  And
> I think it was female, in which case shame on them, but I'm not sure.

Some Macs had DB-25's for SCSI.  And I've seen them used by
multiple vendors for parallel ports.

"... so many to choose from".

-- 
Jeff Woolsey {woolsey,jlw}@{jlw,jxh}.com
"Delete! Delete! OK!" -Dr. Bronner on disk space management
"A toy robot!!!!" -unlucky Japanese scientist
"And Leon's getting laaaarrger!"  -Johnnie
"I didn't get a 'Harrumph!' out of _that_ guy." -Gov Le Petomaine





From bill at wards.net  Tue Nov 26 15:48:18 2002
From: bill at wards.net (William R Ward)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 15:48:18 -0800
Subject: Need Sun RJ-45 console cable 
In-Reply-To: <200211262337.PAA13995@arglebargle.jlw.com>
References: <15843.65107.738381.511122@komodo.home.wards.net>
	<200211262337.PAA13995@arglebargle.jlw.com>
Message-ID: <15844.2114.22991.324711@komodo.home.wards.net>

Jeff Woolsey writes:
>> Quaere: what gender DB-25's did Macs have?  I think the current Macs
>> don't have them at all, but I seem to recall the early ones did.  And
>> I think it was female, in which case shame on them, but I'm not sure.
>
>Some Macs had DB-25's for SCSI.

Right, I remember that ... I think it's a nonstandard form of SCSI
though, because normally you need 50 pins.  I think all the early Macs
used DB-25's for SCSI now that you mention it.

Did Macs ever have DB-25 serial ports?  What gender?

Your comment reminds me: Sun 3's used a D connector for SCSI, but it
had 50 pins in 3 rows.  Dx-50, where x is left as an exercise to the
student. ;-)

>And I've seen them used by
>multiple vendors for parallel ports.
>
>"... so many to choose from".

Yes, IBM probably originated that: using female DB-25's for Centronics
parallel printer interfaces (probably because the Centronics connector
wouldn't fit through the slots for the PC's card cage).

I think a big factor also, for this as well as the Mac SCSI
connectors, was that the widespread use of DB-25's for terminals and
modems made the parts really cheap compared to other connectors.

I love this computer history thread, but I am afraid it's not terribly
relevant to this list.  Is there a mailing list that would be more
appropriate?  I don't know of any personally.

--Bill.

-- 
William R Ward            bill at wards.net          http://www.wards.net/~bill/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Consistency is not really a human trait.
                         --Maude (from the film "Harold & Maude")


From jxh at jxh.com  Tue Nov 26 15:58:55 2002
From: jxh at jxh.com (Jim Hickstein)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 15:58:55 -0800
Subject: Need Sun RJ-45 console cable
In-Reply-To: <15843.65107.738381.511122@komodo.home.wards.net>
References: <11510000.1038333975@jxh.mirapoint.com>
 <20021126102855.B27581@snew.com><3410000.1038341093@jxh.mirapoint.com>
 <15843.65107.738381.511122@komodo.home.wards.net>
Message-ID: <24600000.1038355135@jxh.mirapoint.com>

--On Tuesday, November 26, 2002 15:05:55 -0800 William R Ward 
<bill at wards.net> wrote:

> box.  However I would argue that Sun was justified in using female
> ports.

Only if they were wired as DCEs, which they are not.  Hence a null-modem, 
or a gender-changer (depending on what is being connected), is _always_ 
required. BZZZZTT!

But yes, this is probably not the right list.


From bill at wards.net  Tue Nov 26 16:02:49 2002
From: bill at wards.net (William R Ward)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 16:02:49 -0800
Subject: Need Sun RJ-45 console cable
In-Reply-To: <24600000.1038355135@jxh.mirapoint.com>
References: <11510000.1038333975@jxh.mirapoint.com>
	<20021126102855.B27581@snew.com>
	<3410000.1038341093@jxh.mirapoint.com>
	<15843.65107.738381.511122@komodo.home.wards.net>
	<24600000.1038355135@jxh.mirapoint.com>
Message-ID: <15844.2985.968266.498750@komodo.home.wards.net>

Jim Hickstein writes:
>--On Tuesday, November 26, 2002 15:05:55 -0800 William R Ward 
><bill at wards.net> wrote:
>
>> box.  However I would argue that Sun was justified in using female
>> ports.
>
>Only if they were wired as DCEs, which they are not.  Hence a null-modem, 
>or a gender-changer (depending on what is being connected), is _always_ 
>required. BZZZZTT!

Well, I guess they got it half-right and half-wrong, whichever way you
look at it.  Maybe it was a compromise.

>But yes, this is probably not the right list.

What is?

--Bill.

-- 
William R Ward            bill at wards.net          http://www.wards.net/~bill/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Consistency is not really a human trait.
                         --Maude (from the film "Harold & Maude")


From jxh at jxh.com  Tue Nov 26 16:08:25 2002
From: jxh at jxh.com (Jim Hickstein)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 16:08:25 -0800
Subject: Sun CD-ROM problems
In-Reply-To: <10530000.1038344974@jxh.mirapoint.com>
References: <10530000.1038344974@jxh.mirapoint.com>
Message-ID: <25250000.1038355705@jxh.mirapoint.com>

There seem to be two factors operating, here:

1. The POS 24x PC CD-ROM has a long-seek time that seems in the range of 
900ms.  And "boot cdrom" et seq, for Solaris 8, does a lot of these. 
Thousands, I'd say.  (It may be "recalibrating" due to an error, or it may 
not.  It seems to work error-free, just gradually.  And "cat * > /dev/null" 
in e.g. /usr/openwin/lib doesn't produce any such seeks, where / is the 
CD-ROM mounted during suninstall.)

2. When there is no drive on the primary bus (the only hard drive present 
was strapped as a slave, and did not show up at all in "probe-ide"), 
everything seems to take _even longer_.

When I fixed (2), it sped up materially.  So they probably don't test for 
this.  I guess I can understand that.  But I still have a Sun-branded drive 
coming, and I'll bet it's a little faster at (1).  I mean, I remembered 
that this operation sucked, but not _that_ much.


From gwen at reptiles.org  Tue Nov 26 16:20:28 2002
From: gwen at reptiles.org (Gwendolynn ferch Elydyr)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 19:20:28 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Need Sun RJ-45 console cable
In-Reply-To: <15844.2985.968266.498750@komodo.home.wards.net>
Message-ID: <20021126191934.F11023-100000@iguana.reptiles.org>

On Tue, 26 Nov 2002, William R Ward wrote:
> >But yes, this is probably not the right list.
> What is?

Well - it's still relevant to sysadmin work, if a bit out of date, so
I don't really see the need to move it elsewhere (just yet, at any
rate ;>)

Of course it might be interesting to sort out how many folks on this
list actually worked with Sun 3s... (I did ;>)

cheers!
==========================================================================
"A cat spends her life conflicted between a deep, passionate and profound
desire for fish and an equally deep, passionate and profound desire to
avoid getting wet.  This is the defining metaphor of my life right now."



From chuck+baylisa at 2003.snew.com  Tue Nov 26 17:40:18 2002
From: chuck+baylisa at 2003.snew.com (Chuck Yerkes)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 17:40:18 -0800
Subject: Need Sun RJ-45 console cable
In-Reply-To: <15843.65107.738381.511122@komodo.home.wards.net>; from bill@wards.net on Tue, Nov 26, 2002 at 03:05:55PM -0800
References: <11510000.1038333975@jxh.mirapoint.com> <20021126102855.B27581@snew.com> <3410000.1038341093@jxh.mirapoint.com> <15843.65107.738381.511122@komodo.home.wards.net>
Message-ID: <20021126174018.A32059@snew.com>

Quoting William R Ward (bill at wards.net):
> Quaere: what gender DB-25's did Macs have?  I think the current Macs
> don't have them at all, but I seem to recall the early ones did.  And
> I think it was female, in which case shame on them, but I'm not sure.

Mac's used MiniDIN-8 connectors (female) only for serial.  No DB
anything.  Recall how small the "classic" mac was (is? I'm looking
at my OpenBSD Classic II over there...)

They followed the SCSI-1 spec with their DB25 (half of the 50 pin
SCSI are ground, you don't really need ALL those grounded at the
chassis-it's mostly to sheild signal pins from a neighbor and you
can do that within the cable.  However they made some "interesting"
interpretations of the SCSI command standard that were clarified
in SCSI 2.

<ADV>
So, anyone looking for a consultant who knows sendmail really really
well?  (along with ldap, dns and the usual suspects).
</ADV>

chuck


From chuck+baylisa at 2003.snew.com  Tue Nov 26 17:44:34 2002
From: chuck+baylisa at 2003.snew.com (Chuck Yerkes)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 17:44:34 -0800
Subject: Sun CD-ROM problems
In-Reply-To: <10530000.1038344974@jxh.mirapoint.com>; from jxh@jxh.com on Tue, Nov 26, 2002 at 01:09:34PM -0800
References: <10530000.1038344974@jxh.mirapoint.com>
Message-ID: <20021126174434.B32059@snew.com>

Jumpstart, or at least a diskless boot, is really really
useful when you have real Unix boxes around.  When that
boot disk dies (they never die, but when they do ...) you
move it to your "oh crap" net segment and boot it and
recover data.

And why waste an Ultra-10 on Solaris when you could be running a
nice BSD? :)  Open/Net and FreeBSD all run on the Ultra10 (Freebsd,
newly).  You have /usr/ports/, you have source, etc.

Quoting Jim Hickstein (jxh at jxh.com):
> OK, that was good.  Let's try another one. (Sorry for the traffic, but 
> we've always said we wanted this list to be a place to go for answers, and 
> today I have two problems.)
> 
> I have this Sun Ultra-10, missing a CD-ROM drive.  Guy gave it back to 
> saying he could never get an OS loaded. (OK, maybe it's him.)  Stuff in one 
> of the PC-type POS 50x EIDE drives, disk spins up and down and up and down 
> and up and down and it boots, sort of, but takes forever.  Two or three 
> drives did the same thing.
> 
> I've got my finger on a Sun part number drive on eBay.  32x this time. 
> What are the chances this will fix anything?  Do I have a bad controller? 
> A mechanically bad CD?  (Several do the same thing.)  Have I just thrown 
> away fifty bucks on eBay?  (Again? :-)


From star at starshine.org  Tue Nov 26 17:56:37 2002
From: star at starshine.org (Heather Stern)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 17:56:37 -0800
Subject: Sun antiquity (was: console cable)
In-Reply-To: <20021126191934.F11023-100000@iguana.reptiles.org>
References: <15844.2985.968266.498750@komodo.home.wards.net> <20021126191934.F11023-100000@iguana.reptiles.org>
Message-ID: <20021127015637.GA1174@starshine.org>

> > >But yes, this is probably not the right list.
> > What is?
> 
> Well - it's still relevant to sysadmin work, if a bit out of date, so
> I don't really see the need to move it elsewhere (just yet, at any
> rate ;>)
> 
> Of course it might be interesting to sort out how many folks on this
> list actually worked with Sun 3s... (I did ;>)

more like "was in the same department as" ... around the time I was
senior tech support at McAfee, one of the oldest Sun 3's in existence
(I swear!  a 4 digit serial number.  first digit was a 1.)  was the box
which Jim helped sysadmin, for "prevent the programmer types from
rebooting 'the internet' just 'cuz their ethernet cord sucks" values
of sysadmin.

By the time I was postmaster, that old beast had been long since retired
in favor of a freebsd box.

  . | .   Heather Stern                  |         star at starshine.org
--->*<--- Starshine Technical Services - * - consulting at starshine.org
  ' | `   Sysadmin Support and Training  |        (800) 938-4078


From jxh at jxh.com  Tue Nov 26 19:04:09 2002
From: jxh at jxh.com (Jim Hickstein)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 19:04:09 -0800
Subject: Sun CD-ROM problems
In-Reply-To: <20021126174434.B32059@snew.com>
References: <10530000.1038344974@jxh.mirapoint.com>
 <20021126174434.B32059@snew.com>
Message-ID: <15960061.1038337449@[10.9.18.6]>

> And why waste an Ultra-10 on Solaris when you could be running a
> nice BSD? :)  Open/Net and FreeBSD all run on the Ultra10 (Freebsd,
> newly).  You have /usr/ports/, you have source, etc.

It will probably end up running Debian/SPARC, in fact.  (We have some x86 
Debian boxen, so I've learned about apt-get.)  But booting Solaris 8 from 
the CD is a fine torture test to be sure the drive is working.



From rick at linuxmafia.com  Tue Nov 26 22:09:28 2002
From: rick at linuxmafia.com (Rick Moen)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 22:09:28 -0800
Subject: Sun CD-ROM problems
In-Reply-To: <15960061.1038337449@[10.9.18.6]>
References: <10530000.1038344974@jxh.mirapoint.com> <20021126174434.B32059@snew.com> <15960061.1038337449@[10.9.18.6]>
Message-ID: <20021127060927.GD10059@linuxmafia.com>

Quoting Jim Hickstein (jxh at jxh.com):

[Concerning an Ultra10:]

> It will probably end up running Debian/SPARC, in fact.  (We have some x86 
> Debian boxen, so I've learned about apt-get.)  But booting Solaris 8 from 
> the CD is a fine torture test to be sure the drive is working.

I list known Freenix options for SPARC, here:
http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/linux-info/sparc

(The remark about FreeBSD being newly functional on SPARC is duly noted.
I may have to revise my remarks, if it's now in a usable state.)

-- 
Cheers,                     "All power is delightful, but absolute power
Rick Moen                    is absolutely delightful."  - Kenneth Tynan
rick at linuxmafia.com


From rick at linuxmafia.com  Tue Nov 26 22:39:59 2002
From: rick at linuxmafia.com (Rick Moen)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 22:39:59 -0800
Subject: Sun CD-ROM problems
In-Reply-To: <20021127060927.GD10059@linuxmafia.com>
References: <10530000.1038344974@jxh.mirapoint.com> <20021126174434.B32059@snew.com> <15960061.1038337449@[10.9.18.6]> <20021127060927.GD10059@linuxmafia.com>
Message-ID: <20021127063959.GH10059@linuxmafia.com>

Quoting myself:

> (The remark about FreeBSD being newly functional on SPARC is duly noted.
> I may have to revise my remarks, if it's now in a usable state.)

I was mislead by a set of old pages with high Google juice: 
http://people.freebsd.org/~obrien/freebsd-sparc/status.html 
http://people.freebsd.org/~obrien/freebsd-sparc/oldfaq.html

"To be blunt, the port is a long way from release...."

The current information is here, and is much more sanguine:
http://www.freebsd.org/platforms/sparc.html

See .signature block.  ;->

-- 
Cheers,                     Errors have been made.  Others will be blamed.
Rick Moen
rick at linuxmafia.com


From greg at kulosa.org  Tue Nov 26 22:20:07 2002
From: greg at kulosa.org (Greg Kulosa)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 22:20:07 -0800
Subject: Need Sun RJ-45 console cable
In-Reply-To: <200211262337.PAA13995@arglebargle.jlw.com>; from woolsey@jlw.com on Tue, Nov 26, 2002 at 03:37:35PM -0800
References: <15843.65107.738381.511122@komodo.home.wards.net> <200211262337.PAA13995@arglebargle.jlw.com>
Message-ID: <20021126222007.A18499@jaxom.dhcp.kulosa.org>




> Some Macs had DB-25's for SCSI.  And I've seen them used by
> multiple vendors for parallel ports.S


Ah, yes, I remember the tech support visit so well.....

The user had taken the PC printer, and plugged it into the back of the
Macintosh, and wanted to know why the Mac would not boot!

The parallel port cable confused the SCSI bus sufficiently that the Mac
couldn't see it's own boot drive.  Lucky it didn't fry anything.


-- 
Greg A. Kulosa          | "The avalanche has already started, it is too
Systems Administrator   |  late for the pebbles to vote." - Ambassador Kosh
Independent Consultant  |___________________________________________________
greg at kulosa.org          


From holland at guidancetech.com  Tue Nov 26 21:24:30 2002
From: holland at guidancetech.com (Rich Holland)
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 00:24:30 -0500
Subject: systemic problems?
Message-ID: <007101c295d5$4650d370$6400a8c0@hackintosh>

[Hand de-MIMEd/HTMLed by me -- dhw]

I'm starting to wonder if anyone else is seeing systemic problems with
their ISP's.  I've got a broadband connection via Time Warner (Cable) in
Kansas City, and last week it started sporadically dropping packets.
Round trip times were all over the map, and anywhere from 40-60% packet
loss.  We swapped modems because TW said a lot of that particular model
"went bad" the same week (bad capacitors?) but that didn't fix the
problem.

 

I also have a Verizon DSL connection (using Genuity) in Buffalo, NY.
This week I started seeing very similar behavior.  RTT's all over the
map with random packet loss.  This happens whether I'm using Genuity's
network or Qwest's, and I've been unable to keep a connection up at
either site for more than 10-15 minutes at a time.  I've had more time
in Buffalo to play with the equipment, and have noticed that the
connection appears good and steady, but within 10 minutes of a power
cycle, starts degrading and dropping packets again.

 

Normally I'd just say, "@#(*F# cable company," lodge my complaints with
them, and move on, but it's really bizarre that it's happening with
multiple ISP's using multiple backbones several thousand miles apart.

 

Rich


From david at catwhisker.org  Wed Nov 27 04:46:50 2002
From: david at catwhisker.org (David Wolfskill)
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 04:46:50 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Sun CD-ROM problems
In-Reply-To: <20021127060927.GD10059@linuxmafia.com>
Message-ID: <200211271246.gARCkonk032367@bunrab.catwhisker.org>

>Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 22:09:28 -0800
>From: Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com>

>(The remark about FreeBSD being newly functional on SPARC is duly noted.
>I may have to revise my remarks, if it's now in a usable state.)

Note that FreeBSD's SPARC support is strictly for sparc64.

It boots and appears to self-host.  I have access to at least one such
system, though I've never seen it:

panther(5.0-C)[1] uname -a
FreeBSD panther.freebsd.org 5.0-CURRENT FreeBSD 5.0-CURRENT #15: Tue Nov 12 20:16:48 PST 2002     peter at panther.freebsd.org:/s/src/sys/sparc64/compile/PANTHER  sparc64
panther(5.0-C)[2] 

Note that the sparc64 support is only in FreeBSD 5-CURRENT at this point.
FreeBSD 5-CURRENT is (as of his writing) approaching release of 5.0,
with a target expected to be within a few weeks (or less).

Note further that 5.0 is expected to be usable, but have some rough
edges, and is not recommended for mission-critical workloads (as I
understand things).

That said, there's a lot of new functionality in FreeBSD 5, including
quite a bit from the TrustedBSD effort.

Cheers,
david       (links to my resume at http://www.catwhisker.org/~david)
-- 
David H. Wolfskill				david at catwhisker.org
I have no confidence in results obtained through the use of Microsoft products.


From bill at linuxcare.com  Wed Nov 27 07:16:25 2002
From: bill at linuxcare.com (Bill Schoolcraft)
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 07:16:25 -0800
Subject: Sun CD-ROM problems
References: <10530000.1038344974@jxh.mirapoint.com>
Message-ID: <3DE4E1C9.7AC3A69C@linuxcare.com>

Jim Hickstein wrote:
> 
> OK, that was good.  Let's try another one. (Sorry for the traffic, but
> we've always said we wanted this list to be a place to go for answers, and
> today I have two problems.)
> 
> I have this Sun Ultra-10, missing a CD-ROM drive.  Guy gave it back to
> saying he could never get an OS loaded. (OK, maybe it's him.)  Stuff in one
> of the PC-type POS 50x EIDE drives, disk spins up and down and up and down
> and up and down and it boots, sort of, but takes forever.  Two or three
> drives did the same thing.
> 
> I've got my finger on a Sun part number drive on eBay.  32x this time.
> What are the chances this will fix anything?  Do I have a bad controller?
> A mechanically bad CD?  (Several do the same thing.)  Have I just thrown
> away fifty bucks on eBay?  (Again? :-)

I have an Ultra-10 at home and when the cdrom drive went bad I put in
one of the spares I had at home, I believe it was a 32x and it didn't
work. The 32x cdrom was good though. I removed and put in a older slower
4x cdrom and it worked fine.  I didn't dig any further since the box
runs headless in my house and I use it as a backup server for all my
other "active" Unix boxes.

If you find out anything on this I'd like to know... 


--
Bill Schoolcraft, Unix/Linux System Engineer
650 Townsend Street, San Francisco, CA 94103
(415) 354-4878      http://www.linuxcare.com
    "Simplifying Server Consolidation"


From jxh at jxh.com  Wed Nov 27 08:40:46 2002
From: jxh at jxh.com (Jim Hickstein)
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 08:40:46 -0800
Subject: systemic problems?
In-Reply-To: <007101c295d5$4650d370$6400a8c0@hackintosh>
References: <007101c295d5$4650d370$6400a8c0@hackintosh>
Message-ID: <6040000.1038415246@jxh.mirapoint.com>

> Round trip times were all over the map, and anywhere from 40-60% packet
> loss.

What does traceroute say about where the propagation delays were?


From baylisa at t-n-e.com  Wed Nov 27 09:02:51 2002
From: baylisa at t-n-e.com (Phil Hunter)
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 09:02:51 -0800
Subject: Need Sun RJ-45 console cable
References: <11510000.1038333975@jxh.mirapoint.com>
Message-ID: <3DE4FABB.39DC3F2E@t-n-e.com>

AFAIK, RS232 is an electrical and pin function spec, but does not
include the connectors, hence the diversity.

One part of the spec says you can connect the transmitters to
either power supply indefinitely without damage. In the absence
of documentation, if you exercise reasonable sys-adminly caution,
I'd say just Go For It and plug things in, highly unlikely you'll
hurt anything from wires being crossed.

This is probably "preaching to the choir", but I'm a fan of the
Yost "wiring standard", i.e., using modular DB-9/DB-25 to RJ45 adapters
to get a consistent RJ45 pinout regardless of DTE/DCE,
9 or 25 or ? pins, etc. As long as the baud rate, bits/char and
parity match, you can then connect "anything to anything", nice
for emergencies, I've standardized on 9600 8N1.

Details are in the Red & Purple books and at
http://yost.com/computers/RJ45-serial/index.html

I have adapters for my laptop, hp200lx (makes a nice, portable
terminal) and palm 3 (as a last resort). In my goodie bag I have
two stubby 3" cables, one cable is "rolled", one "straight-thru",
and an RJ45 "phone coupler". 10baseT ethernet cables are used as
"extension cords".

With such a kit, Jim probably could have had something working
within a few minutes.

HTHs,
phil


From dmack at leviatron.com  Wed Nov 27 09:10:54 2002
From: dmack at leviatron.com (Dave Mack)
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 09:10:54 -0800
Subject: Need Sun RJ-45 console cable
In-Reply-To: <20021126191934.F11023-100000@iguana.reptiles.org>
Message-ID: <001501c29637$f24bb250$0b00a8c0@emerald>

Does this mean war stories are OK? :-)

I admin'ed a Sun-2/170 for McDonnell-Douglas back in 84 or 85. The
Sun-3's came a bit later, followed by Sparcstation-1's. When is the last
time anyone here saw a functional Multibus-based Sun system?

Dave

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-baylisa at baylisa.org [mailto:owner-baylisa at baylisa.org] On
Behalf Of Gwendolynn ferch Elydyr
Sent: Tuesday, November 26, 2002 4:20 PM
To: William R Ward
Cc: Jim Hickstein; Chuck Yerkes; baylisa at baylisa.org
Subject: Re: Need Sun RJ-45 console cable

On Tue, 26 Nov 2002, William R Ward wrote:
> >But yes, this is probably not the right list.
> What is?

Well - it's still relevant to sysadmin work, if a bit out of date, so
I don't really see the need to move it elsewhere (just yet, at any
rate ;>)

Of course it might be interesting to sort out how many folks on this
list actually worked with Sun 3s... (I did ;>)

cheers!
========================================================================
==
"A cat spends her life conflicted between a deep, passionate and
profound
desire for fish and an equally deep, passionate and profound desire to
avoid getting wet.  This is the defining metaphor of my life right now."




From jxh at jxh.com  Wed Nov 27 09:16:17 2002
From: jxh at jxh.com (Jim Hickstein)
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 09:16:17 -0800
Subject: Need Sun RJ-45 console cable
In-Reply-To: <3DE4FABB.39DC3F2E@t-n-e.com>
References: <11510000.1038333975@jxh.mirapoint.com>
 <3DE4FABB.39DC3F2E@t-n-e.com>
Message-ID: <13180000.1038417377@jxh.mirapoint.com>

> AFAIK, RS232 is an electrical and pin function spec, but does not
  ^^^^^
> include the connectors, hence the diversity.

EIA RS-232-C certainly _does_ include the physical connector spec, 
including which ones are male (pins) and all that.  I know.  I saw a copy, 
admittedly a long time ago.  My employer had "the blue book", a bound 
volume with many such standards in it.

I'll bet a library (remember those?) would have this, too.  ITU has started 
letting people get 3 documents for free (www.itu.int), but I'm not sure 
about EIA/TIA/whatever.



From kovar at 1srg.org  Wed Nov 27 10:03:09 2002
From: kovar at 1srg.org (David C. Kovar)
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 10:03:09 -0800
Subject: Need Sun RJ-45 console cable
In-Reply-To: <001501c29637$f24bb250$0b00a8c0@emerald>
Message-ID: <NKEPLOEPGKAAFGEMNJEKAEAPMMAA.kovar@1srg.org>

Greetings,

I started with Suns at Dartmouth College in '84-'86 using some huge Eagle drives. I've worked with pretty much everything they've released since then, including a long stint with i386s at Harvard.

-David


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-baylisa at baylisa.org [mailto:owner-baylisa at baylisa.org]On
Behalf Of Dave Mack
Sent: Wednesday, November 27, 2002 9:11 AM
To: baylisa at baylisa.org
Subject: RE: Need Sun RJ-45 console cable


Does this mean war stories are OK? :-)

I admin'ed a Sun-2/170 for McDonnell-Douglas back in 84 or 85. The
Sun-3's came a bit later, followed by Sparcstation-1's. When is the last
time anyone here saw a functional Multibus-based Sun system?

Dave

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-baylisa at baylisa.org [mailto:owner-baylisa at baylisa.org] On
Behalf Of Gwendolynn ferch Elydyr
Sent: Tuesday, November 26, 2002 4:20 PM
To: William R Ward
Cc: Jim Hickstein; Chuck Yerkes; baylisa at baylisa.org
Subject: Re: Need Sun RJ-45 console cable

On Tue, 26 Nov 2002, William R Ward wrote:
> >But yes, this is probably not the right list.
> What is?

Well - it's still relevant to sysadmin work, if a bit out of date, so
I don't really see the need to move it elsewhere (just yet, at any
rate ;>)

Of course it might be interesting to sort out how many folks on this
list actually worked with Sun 3s... (I did ;>)

cheers!
========================================================================
==
"A cat spends her life conflicted between a deep, passionate and
profound
desire for fish and an equally deep, passionate and profound desire to
avoid getting wet.  This is the defining metaphor of my life right now."





From chuck+baylisa at 2003.snew.com  Wed Nov 27 10:22:15 2002
From: chuck+baylisa at 2003.snew.com (Chuck Yerkes)
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 10:22:15 -0800
Subject: Need Sun RJ-45 console cable
In-Reply-To: <20021126222007.A18499@jaxom.dhcp.kulosa.org>; from greg@kulosa.org on Tue, Nov 26, 2002 at 10:20:07PM -0800
References: <15843.65107.738381.511122@komodo.home.wards.net> <200211262337.PAA13995@arglebargle.jlw.com> <20021126222007.A18499@jaxom.dhcp.kulosa.org>
Message-ID: <20021127102215.A20401@snew.com>

No, is this a user error or a failing of the computer makers?
I offer the latter.  At least that odd HD connector on Mac
laptops isn't used elsewhere.

Quoting Greg Kulosa (greg at kulosa.org):
> > Some Macs had DB-25's for SCSI.  And I've seen them used by
> > multiple vendors for parallel ports.S
> 
> Ah, yes, I remember the tech support visit so well.....
> 
> The user had taken the PC printer, and plugged it into the back of the
> Macintosh, and wanted to know why the Mac would not boot!
> 
> The parallel port cable confused the SCSI bus sufficiently that the Mac
> couldn't see it's own boot drive.  Lucky it didn't fry anything.


From chuck+baylisa at 2003.snew.com  Wed Nov 27 10:28:11 2002
From: chuck+baylisa at 2003.snew.com (Chuck Yerkes)
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 10:28:11 -0800
Subject: old hardware
In-Reply-To: <NKEPLOEPGKAAFGEMNJEKAEAPMMAA.kovar@1srg.org>; from kovar@1srg.org on Wed, Nov 27, 2002 at 10:03:09AM -0800
References: <001501c29637$f24bb250$0b00a8c0@emerald> <NKEPLOEPGKAAFGEMNJEKAEAPMMAA.kovar@1srg.org>
Message-ID: <20021127102811.B20401@snew.com>

Ah pish.  Those Suns never had graphics.  SGI 3030's...
SGI 4060(T & GT).   Now *those* were machines.

Quoting David C. Kovar (kovar at 1srg.org):
> I started with Suns at Dartmouth College in '84-'86 using some huge Eagle drives. I've worked with pretty much everything they've released since then, including a long stint with i386s at Harvard.


From guy at extragalactic.net  Wed Nov 27 11:10:48 2002
From: guy at extragalactic.net (Guy B. Purcell)
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 11:10:48 -0800
Subject: Need Sun RJ-45 console cable
In-Reply-To: <20021127102215.A20401@snew.com>
Message-ID: <F0301A80-023B-11D7-9056-0030657CE32A@extragalactic.net>

Replying off-list to avoid starting a religious war there...

I thought a bit about this, and beg to differ.  Apple put a label over 
every port on the Mac.  If this user had bothered to pay attention, 
s/he may not have made such a mistake.  Just because it's possible to 
plug a cable for one "hardware service" into the port for a different 
function doesn't mean that the designer of either piece of equipment 
failed--especially if they bothered to label their ports.  Were that 
the case, then the makers of every switch in common use today are at 
fault for bad design because I can plug an RJ11 phone cord into their 
equipment's RJ45 switch ports.

In this case, the user is clearly at fault--perhaps not for plugging in 
the printer, which could be construed as an understandable mistake, but 
definitely for not unplugging it after seeing that the hardware 
addition caused a problem.  Personally, I don't mind my users 
experimenting a little (that's how they learn stuff, and I consider 
learning to be A Good Thing in general); they'd just better be prepared 
to undo whatever they do, in case it breaks something.

-Guy


On Wednesday, November 27, 2002, at 10:22 AM, Chuck Yerkes wrote:

> No, is this a user error or a failing of the computer makers?
> I offer the latter.  At least that odd HD connector on Mac
> laptops isn't used elsewhere.
>
> Quoting Greg Kulosa (greg at kulosa.org):
>>> Some Macs had DB-25's for SCSI.  And I've seen them used by
>>> multiple vendors for parallel ports.S
>>
>> Ah, yes, I remember the tech support visit so well.....
>>
>> The user had taken the PC printer, and plugged it into the back of the
>> Macintosh, and wanted to know why the Mac would not boot!
>>
>> The parallel port cable confused the SCSI bus sufficiently that the 
>> Mac
>> couldn't see it's own boot drive.  Lucky it didn't fry anything.



From gwen at reptiles.org  Wed Nov 27 11:24:11 2002
From: gwen at reptiles.org (Gwendolynn ferch Elydyr)
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 14:24:11 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Need Sun RJ-45 console cable
In-Reply-To: <F0301A80-023B-11D7-9056-0030657CE32A@extragalactic.net>
Message-ID: <20021127142349.O11023-100000@iguana.reptiles.org>

On Wed, 27 Nov 2002, Guy B. Purcell wrote:
> Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 11:10:48 -0800
> From: Guy B. Purcell <guy at extragalactic.net>
> To: baylisa at baylisa.org
> Subject: Re: Need Sun RJ-45 console cable
>
> Replying off-list to avoid starting a religious war there...

Uh... Guy...  *grin*

cheers!
==========================================================================
"A cat spends her life conflicted between a deep, passionate and profound
desire for fish and an equally deep, passionate and profound desire to
avoid getting wet.  This is the defining metaphor of my life right now."



From woolsey at jlw.com  Wed Nov 27 11:32:32 2002
From: woolsey at jlw.com (Jeff Woolsey)
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 11:32:32 -0800
Subject: Need Sun RJ-45 console cable 
In-Reply-To: Message from "Dave Mack" <dmack@leviatron.com> 
   of "Wed, 27 Nov 2002 09:10:54 PST." <001501c29637$f24bb250$0b00a8c0@emerald>
Message-ID: <200211271932.LAA19064@arglebargle.jlw.com>

> Does this mean war stories are OK? :-)
> 
> I admin'ed a Sun-2/170 for McDonnell-Douglas back in 84 or 85. The
> Sun-3's came a bit later, followed by Sparcstation-1's. When is the last
> time anyone here saw a functional Multibus-based Sun system?

Do MultiBus-to-9U VME adapters count?  My 4/260 worked last time I
turned it on a year ago.  It's due for another trial run next month.
-- 
Jeff Woolsey {woolsey,jlw}@{jlw,jxh}.com
"Delete! Delete! OK!" -Dr. Bronner on disk space management
"A toy robot!!!!" -unlucky Japanese scientist
"And Leon's getting laaaarrger!"  -Johnnie
"I didn't get a 'Harrumph!' out of _that_ guy." -Gov Le Petomaine





From nthomas at cise.ufl.edu  Wed Nov 27 12:07:35 2002
From: nthomas at cise.ufl.edu (N. Thomas)
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 15:07:35 -0500
Subject: FreeBSD 5
In-Reply-To: <200211271246.gARCkonk032367@bunrab.catwhisker.org>
References: <20021127060927.GD10059@linuxmafia.com> <200211271246.gARCkonk032367@bunrab.catwhisker.org>
Message-ID: <20021127200735.GA13078@cise.ufl.edu>

* David Wolfskill <david at catwhisker.org> [2002-11-27 04:46:50 -0800]:
> That said, there's a lot of new functionality in FreeBSD 5, including
> quite a bit from the TrustedBSD effort.

I'm looking forward to the new rc.d system. After 5.0 comes out, OpenBSD
will be the only one with the horrible old system. (Blech!)

thomas

-- 
N. Thomas
nthomas at cise.ufl.edu
Etiamsi occiderit me, in ipso sperabo


From jxh at jxh.com  Wed Nov 27 12:44:05 2002
From: jxh at jxh.com (Jim Hickstein)
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 12:44:05 -0800
Subject: Need Sun RJ-45 console cable 
In-Reply-To: <200211271932.LAA19064@arglebargle.jlw.com>
References: <200211271932.LAA19064@arglebargle.jlw.com>
Message-ID: <24390000.1038429845@jxh.mirapoint.com>

Hey, Jeff, let's see if it will run Debian/SPARC.  (You can use the waste 
heat, right?)  I still don't have a bootable Debian CD for this Ultra-10, 
but I will figure that out even if I waste the entire afternoon doing it. 
:-)

Do we have to write this on a QIC-24?  I don't remember a floppy drive on 
the 4/260.

> Do MultiBus-to-9U VME adapters count?  My 4/260 worked last time I
> turned it on a year ago.  It's due for another trial run next month.



From woolsey at jlw.com  Wed Nov 27 12:55:42 2002
From: woolsey at jlw.com (Jeff Woolsey)
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 12:55:42 -0800
Subject: Need Sun RJ-45 console cable 
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 27 Nov 2002 12:44:05 PST."
             <24390000.1038429845@jxh.mirapoint.com> 
Message-ID: <200211272055.MAA19142@arglebargle.jlw.com>

> Hey, Jeff, let's see if it will run Debian/SPARC.  

It should.  It's run SunOS 4.1.x, SunOS 5.4, NetBSD 1.4, and SunOS 3.2.
Some free Unix distributions account for kernel architecture differences
without having to have separate kernels.

> (You can use the waste heat, right?)

This time of year.  Of course, it depends on the objective.  Is it to
heat the room and drown out the stereo and oh-by-the-way see if Debian
works?  Or vice-versa?

>  I still don't have a bootable Debian CD for this Ultra-10, 

> Do we have to write this on a QIC-24?  I don't remember a floppy drive on 
> the 4/260.

You need a RARP and TFTP server, and broadband internet (can use fast proxy).
I did this with the SS5/160.

> > Do MultiBus-to-9U VME adapters count?  My 4/260 worked last time I
> > turned it on a year ago.  It's due for another trial run next month.

-- 
Jeff Woolsey {woolsey,jlw}@{jlw,jxh}.com
"Delete! Delete! OK!" -Dr. Bronner on disk space management
"A toy robot!!!!" -unlucky Japanese scientist
"And Leon's getting laaaarrger!"  -Johnnie
"I didn't get a 'Harrumph!' out of _that_ guy." -Gov Le Petomaine





From bill at wards.net  Wed Nov 27 14:47:37 2002
From: bill at wards.net (William R Ward)
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 14:47:37 -0800
Subject: Need Sun RJ-45 console cable
In-Reply-To: <20021126174018.A32059@snew.com>
References: <11510000.1038333975@jxh.mirapoint.com>
	<20021126102855.B27581@snew.com>
	<3410000.1038341093@jxh.mirapoint.com>
	<15843.65107.738381.511122@komodo.home.wards.net>
	<20021126174018.A32059@snew.com>
Message-ID: <15845.19337.232216.954375@komodo.home.wards.net>

Chuck Yerkes writes:
>Quoting William R Ward (bill at wards.net):
>> Quaere: what gender DB-25's did Macs have?  I think the current Macs
>> don't have them at all, but I seem to recall the early ones did.  And
>> I think it was female, in which case shame on them, but I'm not sure.
>
>Mac's used MiniDIN-8 connectors (female) only for serial.  No DB
>anything.  Recall how small the "classic" mac was (is? I'm looking
>at my OpenBSD Classic II over there...)

Right, I remember that now...

--Bill.

-- 
William R Ward            bill at wards.net          http://www.wards.net/~bill/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Consistency is not really a human trait.
                         --Maude (from the film "Harold & Maude")


From bill at wards.net  Wed Nov 27 14:53:45 2002
From: bill at wards.net (William R Ward)
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 14:53:45 -0800
Subject: Need Sun RJ-45 console cable
In-Reply-To: <15845.19337.232216.954375@komodo.home.wards.net>
References: <11510000.1038333975@jxh.mirapoint.com>
	<20021126102855.B27581@snew.com>
	<3410000.1038341093@jxh.mirapoint.com>
	<15843.65107.738381.511122@komodo.home.wards.net>
	<20021126174018.A32059@snew.com>
	<15845.19337.232216.954375@komodo.home.wards.net>
Message-ID: <15845.19705.803376.561684@komodo.home.wards.net>

William R Ward writes:
>Chuck Yerkes writes:
>>Quoting William R Ward (bill at wards.net):
>>> Quaere: what gender DB-25's did Macs have?  I think the current Macs
>>> don't have them at all, but I seem to recall the early ones did.  And
>>> I think it was female, in which case shame on them, but I'm not sure.
>>
>>Mac's used MiniDIN-8 connectors (female) only for serial.  No DB
>>anything.  Recall how small the "classic" mac was (is? I'm looking
>>at my OpenBSD Classic II over there...)
>
>Right, I remember that now...

Actually that's not too unusual - some Suns did that too, and SGI
Indys.  But they all used different MiniDIN connectors/pinouts.

--Bill.

-- 
William R Ward            bill at wards.net          http://www.wards.net/~bill/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Consistency is not really a human trait.
                         --Maude (from the film "Harold & Maude")


From rick at linuxmafia.com  Wed Nov 27 16:35:11 2002
From: rick at linuxmafia.com (Rick Moen)
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 16:35:11 -0800
Subject: (forw) [gkm@petting-zoo.net: The case of the 500-mile email.]
Message-ID: <20021128003511.GY10059@linuxmafia.com>

----- Forwarded message from glen mccready <gkm at petting-zoo.net> -----
Forwarded-by: Nev Dull <nev at sleepycat.com>
Forwarded-by: Kirk McKusick <mckusick at beastie.mckusick.com>
From: Trey Harris <trey at sage.org>

Here's a problem that *sounded* impossible...  I almost regret posting
the story to a wide audience, because it makes a great tale over drinks
at a conference. :-)  The story is slightly altered in order to protect
the guilty, elide over irrelevant and boring details, and generally make
the whole thing more entertaining.

I was working in a job running the campus email system some years ago
when I got a call from the chairman of the statistics department.

"We're having a problem sending email out of the department."

"What's the problem?" I asked.

"We can't send mail more than 500 miles," the chairman explained.

I choked on my latte.  "Come again?"

"We can't send mail farther than 500 miles from here," he repeated.  "A
little bit more, actually.  Call it 520 miles.  But no farther."

"Um... Email really doesn't work that way, generally," I said, trying
to keep panic out of my voice.  One doesn't display panic when speaking
to a department chairman, even of a relatively impoverished department
like statistics.  "What makes you think you can't send mail more than
500 miles?"

"It's not what I *think*," the chairman replied testily.  "You see, when
we first noticed this happening, a few days ago--"

"You waited a few DAYS?" I interrupted, a tremor tinging my voice.  "And
you couldn't send email this whole time?"

"We could send email.  Just not more than--"

"--500 miles, yes," I finished for him, "I got that.  But why didn't
you call earlier?"

"Well, we hadn't collected enough data to be sure of what was going on
until just now."  Right.  This is the chairman of *statistics*. "Anyway,
I asked one of the geostatisticians to look into it--"

"Geostatisticians..."

"--yes, and she's produced a map showing the radius within which we can
send email to be slightly more than 500 miles.  There are a number of
destinations within that radius that we can't reach, either, or reach
sporadically, but we can never email farther than this radius."

"I see," I said, and put my head in my hands.  "When did this start?
A few days ago, you said, but did anything change in your systems at
that time?"

"Well, the consultant came in and patched our server and rebooted it.
But I called him, and he said he didn't touch the mail system."

"Okay, let me take a look, and I'll call you back," I said, scarcely
believing that I was playing along.  It wasn't April Fool's Day.  I
tried to remember if someone owed me a practical joke.

I logged into their department's server, and sent a few test mails.
This was in the Research Triangle of North Carolina, and a test mail to
my own account was delivered without a hitch.  Ditto for one sent to
Richmond, and Atlanta, and Washington.  Another to Princeton (400 miles)
worked.

But then I tried to send an email to Memphis (600 miles).  It failed.
Boston, failed.  Detroit, failed.  I got out my address book and started
trying to narrow this down.  New York (420 miles) worked, but Providence
(580 miles) failed.

I was beginning to wonder if I had lost my sanity.  I tried emailing a
friend who lived in North Carolina, but whose ISP was in Seattle.
Thankfully, it failed.  If the problem had had to do with the geography
of the human recipient and not his mail server, I think I would have
broken down in tears.

Having established that -- unbelievably -- the problem as reported was
true, and repeatable, I took a look at the sendmail.cf file.  It looked
fairly normal.  In fact, it looked familiar.

I diffed it against the sendmail.cf in my home directory.  It hadn't been
altered -- it was a sendmail.cf I had written.  And I was fairly certain
I hadn't enabled the "FAIL_MAIL_OVER_500_MILES" option.  At a loss, I
telnetted into the SMTP port.  The server happily responded with a SunOS
sendmail banner.

Wait a minute... a SunOS sendmail banner?  At the time, Sun was still
shipping Sendmail 5 with its operating system, even though Sendmail 8 was
fairly mature.  Being a good system administrator, I had standardized on
Sendmail 8.  And also being a good system administrator, I had written a
sendmail.cf that used the nice long self-documenting option and variable
names available in Sendmail 8 rather than the cryptic punctuation-mark
codes that had been used in Sendmail 5.

The pieces fell into place, all at once, and I again choked on the dregs
of my now-cold latte.  When the consultant had "patched the server," he
had apparently upgraded the version of SunOS, and in so doing
*downgraded* Sendmail.  The upgrade helpfully left the sendmail.cf
alone, even though it was now the wrong version.

It so happens that Sendmail 5 -- at least, the version that Sun shipped,
which had some tweaks -- could deal with the Sendmail 8 sendmail.cf, as
most of the rules had at that point remained unaltered.  But the new
long configuration options -- those it saw as junk, and skipped.  And
the sendmail binary had no defaults compiled in for most of these, so,
finding no suitable settings in the sendmail.cf file, they were set to
zero.

One of the settings that was set to zero was the timeout to connect to
the remote SMTP server.  Some experimentation established that on this
particular machine with its typical load, a zero timeout would abort a
connect call in slightly over three milliseconds.

An odd feature of our campus network at the time was that it was 100%
switched.  An outgoing packet wouldn't incur a router delay until hitting
the POP and reaching a router on the far side.  So time to connect to a
lightly-loaded remote host on a nearby network would actually largely be
governed by the speed of light distance to the destination rather than by
incidental router delays.

Feeling slightly giddy, I typed into my shell:

$ units
1311 units, 63 prefixes

You have: 3 millilightseconds
You want: miles
        * 558.84719
        / 0.0017893979

"500 miles, or a little bit more."

Trey Harris
-- 
I'm looking for work.  If you need a SAGE Level IV with 10 years Perl,
tool development, training, and architecture experience, please email
me at trey at sage.org.  I'm willing to relocate for the right opportunity.


----- End forwarded message -----

-- 
A: No.
Q: Should I include quotations after my reply?


From chuck+baylisa at 2003.snew.com  Wed Nov 27 19:17:32 2002
From: chuck+baylisa at 2003.snew.com (Chuck Yerkes)
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 19:17:32 -0800
Subject: Need Sun RJ-45 console cable
In-Reply-To: <20021127142349.O11023-100000@iguana.reptiles.org>; from gwen@reptiles.org on Wed, Nov 27, 2002 at 02:24:11PM -0500
References: <F0301A80-023B-11D7-9056-0030657CE32A@extragalactic.net> <20021127142349.O11023-100000@iguana.reptiles.org>
Message-ID: <20021127191732.A25106@snew.com>

Quoting Gwendolynn ferch Elydyr (gwen at reptiles.org):
> On Wed, 27 Nov 2002, Guy B. Purcell wrote:
> > Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 11:10:48 -0800
> > From: Guy B. Purcell <guy at extragalactic.net>
> > To: baylisa at baylisa.org
> > Subject: Re: Need Sun RJ-45 console cable
> >
> > Replying off-list to avoid starting a religious war there...
> 
> Uh... Guy...  *grin*

I, uh, set the reply-to cause I get dups and it's sort of
automatic and easy with my mutt setup.

And thinks makes me wish I had setup a "guess the icon" game.
Granted Apple (and Sun) used to be pretty good, MS has some
egregious icons.


From star at starshine.org  Wed Nov 27 19:34:53 2002
From: star at starshine.org (Heather Stern)
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 19:34:53 -0800
Subject: Need Sun RJ-45 console cable
In-Reply-To: <24390000.1038429845@jxh.mirapoint.com>
References: <200211271932.LAA19064@arglebargle.jlw.com> <24390000.1038429845@jxh.mirapoint.com>
Message-ID: <20021128033453.GA3866@starshine.org>

On Wed, Nov 27, 2002 at 12:44:05PM -0800, Jim Hickstein wrote:
> Hey, Jeff, let's see if it will run Debian/SPARC.  (You can use the waste 
> heat, right?)  I still don't have a bootable Debian CD for this Ultra-10, 

Oh. Ya shoulda said so when you were over here borrowing my Ultra-5;  I
have one.  Or I know how to trick the net into coughing up an already
completed sparc-capable ISO.

In short, got to http://cdimage.debian.org and tell it "ugh me no unix, me
OS/2 or some other dumb antiquity, must have whole iso.  No, me not got
better idea."  Takes a few clicks deep.

> but I will figure that out even if I waste the entire afternoon doing it. 
> :-)

When you figure out how to cook one, tell me?  I've never burned a
bootable sparc disc myself, that wasn't mkisofs'd by someone else.


  . | .   Heather Stern                  |         star at starshine.org
--->*<--- Starshine Technical Services - * - consulting at starshine.org
  ' | `   Sysadmin Support and Training  |        (800) 938-4078


From star at starshine.org  Wed Nov 27 19:39:25 2002
From: star at starshine.org (Heather Stern)
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 19:39:25 -0800
Subject: Need Sun RJ-45 console cable
In-Reply-To: <F0301A80-023B-11D7-9056-0030657CE32A@extragalactic.net>
References: <20021127102215.A20401@snew.com> <F0301A80-023B-11D7-9056-0030657CE32A@extragalactic.net>
Message-ID: <20021128033925.GB3866@starshine.org>

> Replying off-list to avoid starting a religious war there...

*ahem*   :)  That's okay, it happens to everyone sometimes.
> . . . Were that 
> the case, then the makers of every switch in common use today are at 
> fault for bad design because I can plug an RJ11 phone cord into their 
> equipment's RJ45 switch ports.

I think the folks who wrote the standards for web browsers said it best;
things should accept stupid input in non-catastrophic ways.

I do not deny that plugging the wrong PC part into a correctly labelled
Mac... or Sun for that matter... port is stupid, but I don't think it 
*can* be denied that people do it.  Whether by chance or clutziness or
even malice (unlikely; physical access leads to much better options) 
doesn't matter.

  . | .   Heather Stern                  |         star at starshine.org
--->*<--- Starshine Technical Services - * - consulting at starshine.org
  ' | `   Sysadmin Support and Training  |        (800) 938-4078


From star at starshine.org  Wed Nov 27 20:16:36 2002
From: star at starshine.org (Heather Stern)
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 20:16:36 -0800
Subject: Board election outcome, November 2002
Message-ID: <20021128041636.GD3866@starshine.org>


  The outcome of the November elections of BayLISA is as follows:

  We give a hearty thanks to Jim Hickstein, David Wolfskill, and Amol
  Kabe for their service.  Their terms have ended.  It looks like they
  plan to remain helpful, though.  We like that too :)

  Welcome back to Strata Rose Chalup, and welcome aboard to new Board 
  members Brad Robinson, Stewart Hersey, and Alan Stewart.

  Any member of BayLISA who is inclined to help its inner wheels turn is
  encouraged to join the wheels list (blw at baylisa.org) and attend Board
  meetings as it fits their schedule.  Board meetings are on the First 
  Thursday of every month, with the location provided to people who rsvp
  on the blw list or to Board members directly.

  This isn't to be particularly exclusive, but a side effect of the site 
  being what is most convenient as 1st Thursday approaches.  If, for 
  January onward, you have an available site that is amenable to us having
  four to a dozen or so people, active conversation as we go through the 
  agenda, doesn't mind us bringing food and drink, and ideally offers phone 
  conference ability and an internet connection, let us know on the blw 
  list and we'll consider its location and features among other options
  we presently have available.

Thanks for reading this far, and have a good Thanksgiving weekend :>

-* Heather Stern * Arch (secretary) BayLISA Board * http://www.baylisa.org/ *-


From windsor at warthog.com  Sat Nov 30 01:29:42 2002
From: windsor at warthog.com (Rob Windsor)
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2002 03:29:42 -0600
Subject: systemic problems? 
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 27 Nov 2002 00:24:30 EST."
             <007101c295d5$4650d370$6400a8c0@hackintosh> 
Message-ID: <200211300929.gAU9Thw26209@warthog.com>

I have ATT at HOME here in the DallasTX area.  I've had massive outage
problems for about a month.  The problem is rather bizzare -- running
snoop(1m) on the firewall displays standard "ARP who is..?" chatter,
including traffic from my defaultroute node (beyond my firewall), but
yet during moments of outage, I can't even ping the thing.  When the
network is happy, I can ping that "defaultroute node" address.

The outages come'n'go.  I was down most of Wednesday, but up all day for
turkey-day.  Today, I was out for about an hour in the afternoon.

I'm not sure which is more gruelling, "just coping" with the outages or
attempting to breach the level-1 tech support to catch someone with a
clue.  Of course, their first recommendation is going to be "did you
reboot your PC and power-cycle the cable modem?", which doesn't fix the
problem (network has come back many times already without needing to
reboot) and is a rather detailed process considering my setup.

Rob++

On Wed, 27 Nov 2002 00:24:30 EST, verily did "Rich Holland" write:

> [Hand de-MIMEd/HTMLed by me -- dhw]
> 
> I'm starting to wonder if anyone else is seeing systemic problems with
> their ISP's.  I've got a broadband connection via Time Warner (Cable) in
> Kansas City, and last week it started sporadically dropping packets.
> Round trip times were all over the map, and anywhere from 40-60% packet
> loss.  We swapped modems because TW said a lot of that particular model
> "went bad" the same week (bad capacitors?) but that didn't fix the
> problem.
> 
>  
> 
> I also have a Verizon DSL connection (using Genuity) in Buffalo, NY.
> This week I started seeing very similar behavior.  RTT's all over the
> map with random packet loss.  This happens whether I'm using Genuity's
> network or Qwest's, and I've been unable to keep a connection up at
> either site for more than 10-15 minutes at a time.  I've had more time
> in Buffalo to play with the equipment, and have noticed that the
> connection appears good and steady, but within 10 minutes of a power
> cycle, starts degrading and dropping packets again.
> 
>  
> 
> Normally I'd just say, "@#(*F# cable company," lodge my complaints with
> them, and move on, but it's really bizarre that it's happening with
> multiple ISP's using multiple backbones several thousand miles apart.
> 
>  
> 
> Rich
----------------------------------------
Internet: windsor at warthog.com                             __o
Life: Rob at Carrollton.Texas.USA.Earth                    _`\<,_
                                                       (_)/ (_)
The weather is here, wish you were beautiful.


From jeff at drinktomi.com  Sat Nov 30 02:28:45 2002
From: jeff at drinktomi.com (Jeff with The Big Yellow Suit)
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2002 02:28:45 -0800 (PST)
Subject: systemic problems?
In-Reply-To: <200211300929.gAU9Thw26209@warthog.com>
References: Your
        message
        of
        "Wed,
        27
        Nov
        2002
        00:24:30
        EST."
        <200211300929.gAU9Thw26209@warthog.com>
Message-ID: <1328.216.36.68.212.1038652125.squirrel@mail.gigo.com>

Rob Windsor said:
> I have ATT at HOME here in the DallasTX area.  I've had massive outage
> problems for about a month.  The problem is rather bizzare -- running
> snoop(1m) on the firewall displays standard "ARP who is..?" chatter,
> including traffic from my defaultroute node (beyond my firewall), but
> yet during moments of outage, I can't even ping the thing.  When the
> network is happy, I can ping that "defaultroute node" address.

What kind of layer one connection is betweeen the firewall and
the default route device?  If the devices are connected by 10bT
then this might be a duplex mismatch problem or an auto-negotiation
conflict.  Or it might be a flakey wire.  Then again it might
be the freak bogon emitting turkey carcass in your refrigerator.
In that case you should pick up some bogon sinks.  Several gallons
of cranberry juice usually does the trick.

Now I must get some sleep.

-jeff





From dk at farm.org  Sat Nov 30 02:40:29 2002
From: dk at farm.org (Dmitry Kohmanyuk)
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2002 02:40:29 -0800
Subject: systemic problems?
In-Reply-To: <200211300929.gAU9Thw26209@warthog.com>; from windsor@warthog.com on Sat, Nov 30, 2002 at 03:29:42AM -0600
References: <007101c295d5$4650d370$6400a8c0@hackintosh> <200211300929.gAU9Thw26209@warthog.com>
Message-ID: <20021130024029.A92806@farm.org>

On Sat, Nov 30, 2002 at 03:29:42AM -0600, Rob Windsor wrote:
> The outages come'n'go.  I was down most of Wednesday, but up all day for
> turkey-day.  Today, I was out for about an hour in the afternoon.
> 
> I'm not sure which is more gruelling, "just coping" with the outages or
> attempting to breach the level-1 tech support to catch someone with a
> clue.  Of course, their first recommendation is going to be "did you
> reboot your PC and power-cycle the cable modem?", which doesn't fix the
> problem (network has come back many times already without needing to
> reboot) and is a rather detailed process considering my setup.

	what I do is to run redundant ISP connections (one dsl, one not)
	and use one as default with another as a backup.  
	(This is easier
	said than done, and of course it costs more.  Getting backup
	connection from your employer for free as `your only' dsl can be a good
	option, if such things still exist nowadays.)

	I have almost never had serious outages, though;  
	For reference, my providers were:
	Pacbell DSL (SDSL, then ADSL, both on above-the-cheapest level),
	Concentric DSL (now xo.com),
	Speakeasy.net.

	All these gave me static addresses, which was necessary for my dynamic
	routing setup.




From holland at guidancetech.com  Sat Nov 30 12:53:09 2002
From: holland at guidancetech.com (Rich Holland)
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2002 15:53:09 -0500
Subject: systemic problems? 
In-Reply-To: <200211300929.gAU9Thw26209@warthog.com>
Message-ID: <000001c298b2$82dac050$bd7ba8c0@hackintosh>

I use Time Warner RR in Kansas City and Verizon DSL in Buffalo.  Both
were just sucking last week, but seem to have corrected themselves.  The
Verizon Level 2 tech called to let me know he'd "updated my
configuration" and when I turned my DSL modem back on it should pick up
the new config and be fixed (it did and was).  The RR guys said they had
been in the midst of increasing bandwidth in our area the previous week,
and that it should be better now (it is).  It was just odd that both
providers were experience the same strange behavior (as opposed to a
straight outage).  Lossy connections are aparantly the norm with
broadband these days I guess.

Rich

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-baylisa at baylisa.org [mailto:owner-baylisa at baylisa.org] On
> Behalf Of Rob Windsor
> Sent: Saturday, November 30, 2002 4:30 AM
> To: baylisa at baylisa.org
> Subject: Re: systemic problems?
> 
> I have ATT at HOME here in the DallasTX area.  I've had massive outage
> problems for about a month.  The problem is rather bizzare -- running
> snoop(1m) on the firewall displays standard "ARP who is..?" chatter,
> including traffic from my defaultroute node (beyond my firewall), but
> yet during moments of outage, I can't even ping the thing.  When the
> network is happy, I can ping that "defaultroute node" address.
> 
> The outages come'n'go.  I was down most of Wednesday, but up all day
for
> turkey-day.  Today, I was out for about an hour in the afternoon.