From strata at virtual.net  Fri Aug  1 15:23:13 2003
From: strata at virtual.net (Strata R Chalup)
Date: Fri, 01 Aug 2003 15:23:13 -0700
Subject: j2ee online class, maybe of interest to sysadmins
Message-ID: <3F2AE851.9050808@virtual.net>


I've been seeing positions for sysadmins that call for experience
with weblogic and websphere, and sometimes with Java.  Some friends
of mine in the Boston area recommend this online class pretty highly.
Just an FYI-- it's a volunteer effort thing, so please don't slam 'em
if they don't meet your standards.

http://www.javapassion.com/j2ee/

cheers,
Strata
-- 
========================================================================
Strata Rose Chalup [KF6NBZ]                      strata "@" virtual.net
VirtualNet Consulting                            http://www.virtual.net/
  ** Project Management & Architecture for ISP/ASP Systems Integration **
=========================================================================



From afactor at afactor.com  Fri Aug  8 09:45:47 2003
From: afactor at afactor.com (Alan Factor)
Date: Fri, 08 Aug 2003 09:45:47 -0700
Subject: Monitoring Colo Cage Temperature
Message-ID: <oprtlh6llkfy4d3d@mail.afactor.com>

Can anybody recommend equipment/methods to monitor temperatures in a colo 
cage? My client has several cages (10'x10' to 10'x20' with 5 to 15 racks) 
in a colo facility and I need to monitor hot spots in the cages.

Thanks,
Alan

-- 
Using M2, Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/


From dsmith at FinancialEngines.com  Fri Aug  8 10:08:03 2003
From: dsmith at FinancialEngines.com (David Smith)
Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2003 10:08:03 -0700
Subject: Monitoring Colo Cage Temperature
In-Reply-To: <oprtlh6llkfy4d3d@mail.afactor.com>
References: <oprtlh6llkfy4d3d@mail.afactor.com>
Message-ID: <20030808170803.GE5515@mayhem.pa.fngn.com>

Alan,

You can checkout http://www.netbotz.com/.  Also I know some dell servers have
ambient temp sensors that you can monitor.  I imagine other large vendors
do the same.

Once you get the sensor MRTG works great for this kind of stuff.

Cheers,
Dave

On Fri, 08 Aug 2003, Alan Factor wrote:

> Can anybody recommend equipment/methods to monitor temperatures in a colo 
> cage? My client has several cages (10'x10' to 10'x20' with 5 to 15 racks) 
> in a colo facility and I need to monitor hot spots in the cages.
> 
> Thanks,
> Alan
> 
> -- 
> Using M2, Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/

-- 
David Smith <dsmith at financialengines.com>
Voice: 650-565-7750 Fax: 650-565-4905


From ahorn at deorth.org  Fri Aug  8 10:16:08 2003
From: ahorn at deorth.org (ahorn at deorth.org)
Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2003 10:16:08 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Monitoring Colo Cage Temperature
In-Reply-To: <20030808170803.GE5515@mayhem.pa.fngn.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.44.0308081015050.7177-100000@slick.sigje.org>


On Fri, 8 Aug 2003, David Smith wrote:

>Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2003 10:08:03 -0700
>From: David Smith <dsmith at FinancialEngines.com>
>To: Alan Factor <afactor at afactor.com>
>Cc: baylisa at baylisa.org
>Subject: Re: Monitoring Colo Cage Temperature
>
>Alan,
>
>You can checkout http://www.netbotz.com/.  Also I know some dell servers have
>ambient temp sensors that you can monitor.  I imagine other large vendors
>do the same.
>
>Once you get the sensor MRTG works great for this kind of stuff.

Do you need to just monitor or do you also need to alarm ? If the latter
you may want to look at nagios (www.nagios.org), some company had a
special offer on temperature probes for nagios users if I remember right.



>On Fri, 08 Aug 2003, Alan Factor wrote:
>
>> Can anybody recommend equipment/methods to monitor temperatures in a colo
>> cage? My client has several cages (10'x10' to 10'x20' with 5 to 15 racks)
>> in a colo facility and I need to monitor hot spots in the cages.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Alan
>>
>> --
>> Using M2, Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/
>
>



From michael at halligan.org  Fri Aug  8 11:32:08 2003
From: michael at halligan.org (Michael T. Halligan)
Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2003 11:32:08 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Monitoring Colo Cage Temperature
In-Reply-To: <oprtlh6llkfy4d3d@mail.afactor.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44L0.0308081130540.8750-100000@arrakis.halligan.org>

Alan,

go to http://www.nagios.com/  

Halfway down the page is a link to the TempTrax Ethernet & serial thermometers from Sensatronics.. I use
it in one of my customer's cage (and it ties into nagios quite nicely).  I believe it was about $250.

Michael

> Can anybody recommend equipment/methods to monitor temperatures in a colo 
> cage? My client has several cages (10'x10' to 10'x20' with 5 to 15 racks) 
> in a colo facility and I need to monitor hot spots in the cages.
> 
> Thanks,
> Alan
> 
> 

-- 
-------------------
Michael T. Halligan
Chief Geek
Halligan Infrastructure Designs.
http://www.halligan.org/
2250 Jerrold Ave #11
San Francisco, CA 94124-1012
(415) 724.7998



From dk+baylisa at farm.org  Fri Aug  8 19:15:55 2003
From: dk+baylisa at farm.org (=?koi8-r?B?RG1pdHJ5IEtvaG1hbnl1ayDkzcnU0snKIOvPyM3BzsDL?=)
Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2003 19:15:55 -0700
Subject: Monitoring Colo Cage Temperature
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44L0.0308081130540.8750-100000@arrakis.halligan.org>; from michael@halligan.org on Fri, Aug 08, 2003 at 11:32:08AM -0700
References: <oprtlh6llkfy4d3d@mail.afactor.com> <Pine.LNX.4.44L0.0308081130540.8750-100000@arrakis.halligan.org>
Message-ID: <20030808191555.H65491@farm.org>

On Fri, Aug 08, 2003 at 11:32:08AM -0700, Michael T. Halligan wrote:
> Alan,
> 
> go to http://www.nagios.com/  
> 
> Halfway down the page is a link to the TempTrax Ethernet & serial thermometers from Sensatronics.. I use
> it in one of my customer's cage (and it ties into nagios quite nicely).  I believe it was about $250.

high-end cisco and sun equipment has sensors as well.

i am looking for price-sensitive solution myself and would post if i find something useful.

> > Can anybody recommend equipment/methods to monitor temperatures in a colo 
> > cage? My client has several cages (10'x10' to 10'x20' with 5 to 15 racks) 
> > in a colo facility and I need to monitor hot spots in the cages.
> > 
> > Thanks,
> > Alan
> > 
> > 
> 
> -- 
> -------------------
> Michael T. Halligan
> Chief Geek
> Halligan Infrastructure Designs.
> http://www.halligan.org/
> 2250 Jerrold Ave #11
> San Francisco, CA 94124-1012
> (415) 724.7998


From jongyung at yahoo.com  Sat Aug  9 12:19:58 2003
From: jongyung at yahoo.com (Jong Y. Yoon)
Date: Sat, 9 Aug 2003 12:19:58 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Fwd: Redundant Internet Connection
Message-ID: <20030809191958.23540.qmail@web14205.mail.yahoo.com>

I am considering several options for the redundant
outbound) internet connection setup using T1 and SDSL.

Does anyone have any helpful links/suggestions on this
type of router(s) setup?

Cheers,
Jong.

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com


From bill at wards.net  Mon Aug 11 01:37:59 2003
From: bill at wards.net (William R Ward)
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2003 01:37:59 -0700
Subject: Thu, Aug 14 - Peninsula Linux Users' Group
Message-ID: <16183.21991.826145.849445@komodo.home.wards.net>


PenLUG (Peninsula Linux Users' Group), the bay area's newest Linux
organization, will be having a meeting on:

  Thursday
  August 14, 2003
  7:00pm - 9:00pm

We will be meeting at the Oracle headquarters in Redwood Shores.  We
meet in building 100, room 104 ("1op104" in Oracle parlance).  The
address is:

  100 Oracle Parkway
  Redwood Shores, CA 94065

Agenda:

  7:00 - 7:30 PM: Nuts & Bolts presentation by Tim Flagg:
                  "Why Linux?"
  7:30 - 8:30 PM: Keynote presentation by Wim Coekaerts, Oracle's Linux Guru:
                  "A view of the state of Linux in the Enterprise."
  8:30 - 9:00 PM: App of the Month Club discussion led by Akkana Peck:
                  "The GIMP"

After the meeting, we will adjourn to a local restaurant (TBD) for
social & food time.

PenLUG is the bay area's newest Linux club.  We meet once a month at
the Oracle headquarters in Redwood Shores, CA.  Meetings are always
free, and open to the public.

For more on this meeting, including directions and public transportation
information, visit:

  http://www.penlug.org/

To stay on top of the latest Peninsula Linux news, please join our
"members" mailing list; there's a link on our homepage.  If you are
interested in receiving announcements, but not receiving all of the
chat on the regular list, let me know and I will add you to an
"announce" list that we will be setting up shortly.

--Bill.

--
William R Ward            bill at wards.net          http://www.wards.net/~bill/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
           PROFESSIONAL PROGRAMMER, CLOSED COURSE.  DO NOT ATTEMPT.


From k6dlc at arrl.net  Mon Aug 11 15:20:59 2003
From: k6dlc at arrl.net (Daniel Curry)
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2003 15:20:59 -0700
Subject: High-Speed Digital Networks and Multimedia
Message-ID: <3F3816CB.4070100@arrl.net>

   This may interest in some of the amateur radio operators?

http://www.arrl.org/hsmm/
-- 
Daniel Curry
AD5A 96DC 7556 A020 B8E7  0E4D 5D5E 9BA5 C83E 8C92




From star at starshine.org  Tue Aug 12 09:21:05 2003
From: star at starshine.org (Heather Stern)
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 2003 09:21:05 -0700
Subject: [Alex Walker <alex@usenix.org>] 17th Systems Administration Conference (LISA 2003)
Message-ID: <20030812162105.GA1363@starshine.org>

I think many of us are interested in this ... :D

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

----- Forwarded message from non-member to baylisa list -----

  Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2003 11:24:50 -0700 (PDT)
  From: Alex Walker <alex at usenix.org>
  Message-Id: <200308081824.h78IOoZm007706 at voyager.usenix.org>
  SUBJECT: 17th Systems Administration Conference (LISA 2003)

Early registration discounts for LISA '03, taking place October 26-31,2003 
in San Diego, CA are available now!

Register by Friday, October 11 and save up to $300!
http://www.usenix.org/lisa03/

For the past 17 years LISA has been the focal point for the global
community of system and network administrators.  This year LISA continues
that tradition, featuring innovative tools and techniques essential to
your professional and technical development.

* Select from 39 tutorials taught by highly expert instructors, including:
-   Marcus Ranum on Intrusion Detection and Prevention.
-  Trent Hein and Ned McClain on Advanced Administration and Security
    Topics and Techniques.
-  Gerald Carter on LDAP and on the latest Samba release.
-  Mark Burgess on Cfengine.
-  Mike DeGraw-Bertsch on IPsec and on FreeBSD's Advanced
    Security Features.
-  David Blank-Edelman and also Mark-Jason Dominus on Perl for System
    Administration.
-  David Skoll on Combating Spam.
Other tutorial topics include DNS, DHCP, Solaris Internals, Mac OS X,
System and Network Performance Tuning Backups, Managing Storage,
Advanced Shell Programming and Time Management.

Our Invited Talks are our most impressive slate of speakers yet. They include:
*   Keynote Speaker Paul Kilmartin,  eBay's Director of Availability and
    Performance Engineering, discussing the challenges of his company's
    highly complex real-time computing demands.
*   Networking maven k c claffey on how system administrators and
    researchers can help solve pressing Internet problems.
*   Security expert Gene Kim on what everyone else can learn from the
    organizations with the very best security.
*   Remy Evard will describe how his team addressed and overcame serious
    security problems at Argonne National Laboratory, without loss of services.
*   Moshe Bar will discuss recent advances in Linux clustering for 
    the enterprise.

LISA is the premier forum for presenting new research in system
administration. We selected papers from over 90 submissions, 
showcasing state-of-the-art work, including:
* Xev Gittler and Ken Beer discuss designing and deploying Deutsche
    Bank's configuration monitoring and reporting system.
* Elizabeth Zwicky will present the results of her most recent
    examination of backup tools.
* The practice and theory of large scale configuration management
* Crucial networking topics including diagnosing BGP
    configuration errors, IPsec remote access, and automating
    switch/port configuration management.

Spam Mini Symposium
The conference also includes a half-day symposium focused on fighting
Spam. Leading Spam experts will present the lastest  research findings
and counter-spam techniques. In addition,  epresentatives from
anti-spam organizations and commercial vendors will join them in a panel
discussion to address your questions and concerns.

And Much More ...
- Bring your perplexing technical questions to experts at LISA's unique 
"The Guru Is In" sessions
- Explore the latest commercial innovations at the Vendor Exhibition
- Bring a costume for the "Pre-Halloween" party on 10/30

For complete program information and to register, visit
http://www.usenix.org/lisa03/ 

We look forward to seeing you in sunny San Diego!

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


From faris_a at pacbell.net  Wed Aug 13 01:37:09 2003
From: faris_a at pacbell.net (Adam Faris)
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2003 01:37:09 -0700
Subject: Monitoring Colo Cage Temperature
In-Reply-To: <oprtlh6llkfy4d3d@mail.afactor.com>
Message-ID: <001401c36176$168620b0$2300a8c0@pc1>

If you feel comfortable with a soldering iron do a Google search on "one
wire temperature probes".  This page has a brief overview
http://www.ukrocketman.com/homeauto/ibuttons.shtml

Other related sites to look at are, Ibutton (http://www.ibutton.com) or
Maxim Dallas Semiconductor (http://www.maxim-ic.com/1-Wire.cfm).  Both sell
parts and connectors that allow you to build your own temp probes.

Good luck,
Adam



From star at starshine.org  Tue Aug 12 20:13:51 2003
From: star at starshine.org (Heather Stern)
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 2003 20:13:51 -0700
Subject: (Chuck Yerkes) monitoring temperatures
Message-ID: <20030813031351.GB3557@starshine.org>

His info seemed valuable and he is a member of the list, it just didn't
spot the mismatched plus address.  Enjoy.

-* Heather Stern * Acting postmaster, BayLISA * http://www.baylisa.org/ *-

----- Forwarded message from owner-baylisa at baylisa.org -----
  Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2003 16:31:45 -0400
  From: Chuck Yerkes <chuck+sage at snew.com>
  To: Alan Factor <afactor at afactor.com>
  Cc: baylisa at baylisa.org
  Subject: Re: Monitoring Colo Cage Temperature
  In-Reply-To: <oprtlh6llkfy4d3d at mail.afactor.com>

Hmmm, kinda long, but fun I hope and will tempt others to
play with "real world" input.

Quoting Alan Factor (afactor at afactor.com):
> Can anybody recommend equipment/methods to monitor temperatures in a colo 
> cage? My client has several cages (10'x10' to 10'x20' with 5 to 15 racks) 
> in a colo facility and I need to monitor hot spots in the cages.

This has come up from time to time on this list.

It was also recently on the NYSA.org list where it was advised the
HUMIDITY detection is a good thing along with "is the ground wet?"
(for those not in colo's but with modest server rooms that have
smaller AC units in them :)

I don't have those messages any longer.  They may have archives.
Perry Metzger, of NetBSD note among other things, had some answers
as I recall.

I got back into computers after getting really bored of "I type
stuff in and stuff shows up on the screen" when a teach got me into
electronics on Apple //'s and Forth.  Game ports on those are handy
little A/Ds with several buttons.  My working Apple ][+ STILL has
a row of 1/8" jacks to plug sensors into.  I just wish I had
a serial card for it :)

That served me well handling motion control systems and other data
acquisition and monitoring things.  Now its mostly a hobby and fun.


In Unix land, I used to have "WizTemp" devices - DB25 plug that
had a temp probe attached to a 1/8" jack at the end.  Cost around
$75 in 1993 when we got 20 or so.  It's a little A/D in the DB25
plus a 232 thingy.  It was a no brainer to use, but was a little
too binary to talk to.  Their software was ok and I always stuck
with that.

If you're inclined and not afraid to do non-soldering electronics,
I might suggest "Weedtech.com" - they have a set of devices
based on a PIC chip -> serial that take ASCII commands.  I like them
as a quick way to do this.  I'm also waiting for THIS:
   http://www.basicx.com/lcd+/LCD+overview.htm
to arrive, but that's got A/D, LCD, and other stuff.  Its fun for me.

All the manuals are online in PDF.

Back to the weeder tech stuff:
I have a Digital I/O one - I speak to it in ASCII commands to tell
it ports 1-12 are inputs, and send a message when they change
states; 13-16 are outputs and I send on/off messages.  I can
query to find if it's on or off so *I* don't have to also record
the state.  I pin it to a "device ID" and talk to it as
"$DevId, Command, Parameters".  It talks to me the same.
This is because I can CHAIN THEM TOGETHER on one serial line.

My use of it at home is doing things like seeing if the sprinkler
is on, or if the garage door is open or if a zone on the alarm is
activated (motion in living space -> turn on the light low at 2AM
cause the light switch is hard to find in the dark) and one reading
the UPS.
Others will be on buttons that let my "always on" machine read
them.  Push a button and it will run an "ssh $host halt -p" - mostly
so I don't have to have a live computer with a head to shut off a
home machine.  Eg.  it's bed-time, and I'm done with the loud
Solaris box and just want it off.  No good for real servers, but
at home I have machines that are up for building stuff occasionally.
At home, there's certainly the desire for "push button to make it
go off" desire.  2 system admins and we don't like to just power
cycle :)  This lets us do it right.
Nothing dire, it came out of "Chuck's toy budget" on the home
expenses along with my Lego robot set :)


The A/D one is equally simple to use: 8 inputs taking 0-4VDC.  You
set a threshold and if it passes it, it spits out a note.  Or you
can just query it out of cron.  Taking to it in perl is just
excessively simple.

They go for around $60.  It fits inside an Altoids box.  I've put
the IO stuff into an row of RJ12s (6 pin each has 4 IO lines and
2 gnd) so I can plug stuff in quickly.  The RJ12 stuff makes it
not quite fit in the Altoid tin :(

To use:
The IO pins appear on a screw down header.

Thermistors are excessively cheap (on the order of less than $1 or
so).  Nat Semi makes some temp sensors that are calibrated to emit
outputs that are directly bound to degrees F/C or Kelvin at
10mV/degree.  The LM34(F) and LM35(degrees C) in TO-92 packages go
for a around $2.  Digikey, Jameco, Mouser and the usual suspects have them.

Basic electronics can let us stuff more range into 0-4DV - either
by raising the bottom read (differential A/D) or compressing it.
Freezing to too hot (say 40 degreesC) can fit into 4VDC directly.
If you KNOW it will never be colder than 20C, you can increase the
accuracy.  This can do 12bit A/D (4k steps) at 120 samples/second.
In reality, 1 degree resolution is MORE than enough.  And 1/sample
every minute is plenty in this application.  I've read sliders for
light boards using just 6bit A/D giving 64 steps.  You could measure
accurately enough, from -40 degrees to boiling just fine with this.

Hooking them up is simple enough but you want to calibrate them.
For the Wiztemps (and indeed, thermistors hooks to Apple // game
ports in the day) we put it in a bag (dry), put THAT into a glass
full of ice water.  What's the A/D read? That's around 0C.
Put it into a glass of warm water with a thermometer and use
THAT as the higher measure.

Any A/D stuff needs this - a 30 meter lead to a sensor will cause
some power loss over a sensor that's just a couple CM away.

Basically, if your software reads the mV, converts it to "degrees C"
and then multiplies it by the "sensor B" factor that you've calibrated
(say 1.05) to get the right temp.

If you don't calibrate you risk being off a couple degrees - it
will be consistent however.  You might just always be reading 95%
of the temp.

It's not a canned package, but with a radio shack "project box" (or
you could put it inside an unused drive bay), and a little wiring,
you can have a very flexible 8 probes.  I've played with measuring
temps, measure light levels, pressure, etc, etc.

It's a nice break from typing in code to make machines churn stuff
with no actual "REAL" output or input. Tripping a relay or sending
X10 when the light level in a room gets low can be kind of fun.


I've probably spent more time writing up what you could slap into place
and have running than it would take you.

Device, case, probes and phone wire, a perl script.   You're done and you
can have it look as fancy as you want, but it will be more flexible than
a pre-canned thing.

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


From chuck+baylisa at snew.com  Tue Aug 12 20:27:05 2003
From: chuck+baylisa at snew.com (Chuck Yerkes)
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 2003 23:27:05 -0400
Subject: Monitoring Colo Cage Temperature
Message-ID: <20030813032705.GA757@snew.com>

For temp, I used to have a gang of Wiztemp devices.  DB-25 package
with a 1/8 jack for a thermistor (the 1/8 connectors cost more than
the thermistors).

I wrote a long and lovely and missing message on doing this with
LM34's (or LM35s) which read 0.1v/degree and an A/D like the one
available from weedtech.com which is a lovely serial interface
(with nice ascii commands) to read 8 A/Ds.  You can set a threshold
(high and low) and it will talk to YOU went that threshold is
passed.  (obv, you can just query it into RRDTool).

The weedtech is about the size of an altoid box with screwdown
headers.  Unfo, it needs just a little more room (I have a digital
IO box); it doesn't quite fit inside.  I've got the IO lines on
RJ11 ports and in a little project box.

For A/D, *minor* calibration might be needed if you've got long
cable runs. (I'm littering my house with temp sensors as I pull
cables - Ethernet needs 4 wires of CAT5, the other 2 pair are
MINE).

It's not a canned solution, but it's very flexible and kinda fun
for $60.

I'm waiting for one of these:
    http://www.basicx.com/lcd+/LCD+overview.htm
for home use from the toy budget.  8 ADCs, an LCD,
some relay driver outputs and a serial interface.


Also, the Dallas Semi 1-wire devices can be hooked up pretty easily
to a DB-9 with power injected there and run out through a phone wire
or CAT3 or CAT5.

None of these are canned, but non cost > $100 for 8 temp inputs.
You may drill and punch holes in a project box and perhaps make
connectors through RJ11 or RJ45 plugs.  Maybe solder a power
plug in.  If you can handle that, then it shouldn't be too
challenging and it could be some fun.

I recall Kolstadt and Allman trying to rig up bells for a trivia
contest, but this is all digital electronics - no resistors
should be required :)



From michael at halligan.org  Wed Aug 13 13:53:56 2003
From: michael at halligan.org (Michael T. Halligan)
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2003 13:53:56 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: DSL recommendations?
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44L0.0308131351530.1471-100000@arrakis.halligan.org>

What would everybody recommend?  Cogent, SBC?

I'm currently using speakeasy, and they're pretty horrible.  They've managed
to destroy my billing, charging twice in one month on several occassions, etc.

I went with them because their customer service was renowned, supposedly.. I
can't even get them to let me speak to a supervisor.  When I ask, I get hung
up on.. Maybe they're laying off or something.

My needs are simple, adsl, 1.5mb/768 (preferrably 3.0mb/768 . that's what
I've got with speakeasy.. only nice thing about them is that).. 5 static ips..

Any recommendations?

-------------------
Michael T. Halligan
Chief Geek
Halligan Infrastructure Designs.
http://www.halligan.org/
2250 Jerrold Ave #11
San Francisco, CA 94124-1012
(415) 724.7998



From chuck+baylisa at snew.com  Wed Aug 13 14:45:53 2003
From: chuck+baylisa at snew.com (Chuck Yerkes)
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2003 17:45:53 -0400
Subject: DSL recommendations?
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44L0.0308131351530.1471-100000@arrakis.halligan.org>
References: <Pine.LNX.4.44L0.0308131351530.1471-100000@arrakis.halligan.org>
Message-ID: <20030813214553.GB11195@snew.com>

Didn't this just come up 3-4 weeks ago?

When I call places, I get the name of the person I'm
speaking with and let them know ("Can I get your name again?
I missed it.").

Then I let them know I've been having a problem and need to
speak with a supervisor.  If you do it early, they don't
worry about their own ass.

Then I follow up in writing.

Quoting Michael T. Halligan (michael at halligan.org):
> What would everybody recommend?  Cogent, SBC?
> 
> I'm currently using speakeasy, and they're pretty horrible.  They've managed
> to destroy my billing, charging twice in one month on several occassions, etc.
> 
> I went with them because their customer service was renowned, supposedly.. I
> can't even get them to let me speak to a supervisor.  When I ask, I get hung
> up on.. Maybe they're laying off or something.
> 
> My needs are simple, adsl, 1.5mb/768 (preferrably 3.0mb/768 . that's what
> I've got with speakeasy.. only nice thing about them is that).. 5 static ips..
> 
> Any recommendations?


From henry at vatican.com  Wed Aug 13 14:57:07 2003
From: henry at vatican.com (Henry Goldwire)
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2003 14:57:07 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: DSL recommendations?
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44L0.0308131351530.1471-100000@arrakis.halligan.org>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0308131455310.16245-100000@pearly-gates>


I haven't seen it in action (install pending), but my boss just picked up
some 1.5/768K from britsys.com for $50/month.  2 statics, I think, and you
can have up to 4 more for a buck each or so.

One thing is for certain, they have super responsive and clued-in-sounding 
sales staff at least.

-- Henry

On Wed, 13 Aug 2003, Michael T. Halligan wrote:

> What would everybody recommend?  Cogent, SBC?
> 
> I'm currently using speakeasy, and they're pretty horrible.  They've managed
> to destroy my billing, charging twice in one month on several occassions, etc.
> 
> I went with them because their customer service was renowned, supposedly.. I
> can't even get them to let me speak to a supervisor.  When I ask, I get hung
> up on.. Maybe they're laying off or something.
> 
> My needs are simple, adsl, 1.5mb/768 (preferrably 3.0mb/768 . that's what
> I've got with speakeasy.. only nice thing about them is that).. 5 static ips..
> 
> Any recommendations?
> 
> -------------------
> Michael T. Halligan
> Chief Geek
> Halligan Infrastructure Designs.
> http://www.halligan.org/
> 2250 Jerrold Ave #11
> San Francisco, CA 94124-1012
> (415) 724.7998
> 



From michael at halligan.org  Wed Aug 13 15:05:26 2003
From: michael at halligan.org (Michael T. Halligan)
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2003 15:05:26 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: DSL recommendations?
In-Reply-To: <20030813214553.GB11195@snew.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44L0.0308131503410.1716-100000@arrakis.halligan.org>

> Didn't this just come up 3-4 weeks ago?
> 
> When I call places, I get the name of the person I'm
> speaking with and let them know ("Can I get your name again?
> I missed it.").
> 
> Then I let them know I've been having a problem and need to
> speak with a supervisor.  If you do it early, they don't
> worry about their own ass.
> 
> Then I follow up in writing.

I just canceled and went to covad.. I'll just spend the next 2 weeks
taking advantage of a client's offer to use their offices whenever I want.

I'm pretty meticulous about phone conversations, I always take notes, ask
for full names, etc.. The speakeasy guy.. Man. I've never been told "you're
being abusive, I will not let you speak to my supervisor" before. Ever.  
I'm not abusive on the phone. I merely said "can I please speak to your
supervisor, I don't think we're communicating clearly and I want to voice
my complaints about the deception your salesman portrayed".. Then he hung up.

Maybe it's something in the water in the pacific northwest?


> 
> Quoting Michael T. Halligan (michael at halligan.org):
> > What would everybody recommend?  Cogent, SBC?
> > 
> > I'm currently using speakeasy, and they're pretty horrible.  They've managed
> > to destroy my billing, charging twice in one month on several occassions, etc.
> > 
> > I went with them because their customer service was renowned, supposedly.. I
> > can't even get them to let me speak to a supervisor.  When I ask, I get hung
> > up on.. Maybe they're laying off or something.
> > 
> > My needs are simple, adsl, 1.5mb/768 (preferrably 3.0mb/768 . that's what
> > I've got with speakeasy.. only nice thing about them is that).. 5 static ips..
> > 
> > Any recommendations?
> 

-- 
-------------------
Michael T. Halligan
Chief Geek
Halligan Infrastructure Designs.
http://www.halligan.org/
2250 Jerrold Ave #11
San Francisco, CA 94124-1012
(415) 724.7998



From ea_baylisa at sfik.com  Wed Aug 13 15:51:20 2003
From: ea_baylisa at sfik.com (Simon Cooper)
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2003 15:51:20 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: DSL recommendations?
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44L0.0308131351530.1471-100000@arrakis.halligan.org>
References: <Pine.LNX.4.44L0.0308131351530.1471-100000@arrakis.halligan.org>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.53.0308131449340.1200@harun.sfik.com>

I've had exactly the opposite experiences with Speakeasy.  Billing has been
a breeze.  They bill me using a credit card.  I get an email invoice 21 days
in advance of the charges.  The invoice is clearly designed and includes all
relevant details (account number, invoice number, etc).  My payment history
is online and I can print out paper invoices and receipts for my records.

Is there something complicated with your billing arrangements?

>From my experiences their Technical Support has been outstanding - that
includes their first level support.  Whenever I've had a problem (and there
have been very few) they have listened to what I've told them and if they
need me to speak to someone else they have located that person.  I always
give support a chance to help me - I try not to ask questions that they are
not in a position to answer.  If I don't know who I should be speaking with
(like changing my primary Speakeasy email address), I call and explain what
my issue is and ask them to help me contact the right person.

In general, the first level of support has been very knowledgeable about
their infrastructure and proceedures.  They have access to tools that can
determine where connectivity is failing, they can initiate a rebuild of your
DSL configuration and if it might be a problem at the Covad level, submit a
covad trouble ticket.

On the two occasions (in over 2 years)  where a "fix" was needed at their
end, they beat their time estimate by at least 50%.

I am a fussy customer.  I manage the Speadstream modem at my end of the DSL
line.  I feel that I get very reasonable value for the money I pay
Speakeasy.

Simon.

On Wed, 13 Aug 2003, Michael T. Halligan wrote:

> What would everybody recommend?  Cogent, SBC?
>
> I'm currently using speakeasy, and they're pretty horrible.  They've
> managed to destroy my billing, charging twice in one month on several
> occassions, etc.
>
> I went with them because their customer service was renowned, supposedly..
> I can't even get them to let me speak to a supervisor.  When I ask, I get
> hung up on.. Maybe they're laying off or something.
>
> My needs are simple, adsl, 1.5mb/768 (preferrably 3.0mb/768 . that's what
> I've got with speakeasy.. only nice thing about them is that).. 5 static
> ips..
>
> Any recommendations?
>
> -------------------
> Michael T. Halligan
> Chief Geek
> Halligan Infrastructure Designs.
> http://www.halligan.org/
> 2250 Jerrold Ave #11
> San Francisco, CA 94124-1012
> (415) 724.7998
>


From chuck+baylisa at snew.com  Wed Aug 13 16:23:05 2003
From: chuck+baylisa at snew.com (Chuck Yerkes)
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2003 19:23:05 -0400
Subject: DSL recommendations?
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0308131455310.16245-100000@pearly-gates>
References: <Pine.LNX.4.44L0.0308131351530.1471-100000@arrakis.halligan.org> <Pine.LNX.4.44.0308131455310.16245-100000@pearly-gates>
Message-ID: <20030813232305.GA11920@snew.com>

Quoting Henry Goldwire (henry at vatican.com):
> 
> I haven't seen it in action (install pending), but my boss just picked up
> some 1.5/768K from britsys.com for $50/month.  2 statics, I think, and you
> can have up to 4 more for a buck each or so.
> 
> One thing is for certain, they have super responsive and clued-in-sounding 
> sales staff at least.

You can make them all feel unclued by asking for an IPv6 block and 
"I won't need to tunnel, right?  - you run this natively"


RE: Getting hung up on, that gets a letter to the dept head, the
VP of services and the CEO.
"I've been having a number of problems outlined below.  I called
 your support and spoke with BOFH who hung up on me.  I was being
 neither rude nor abusive and would be delighted to speak to someone
 about this unacceptable behavior and support.
 
       Love,
        disgruntled customer."

You have names.  Use them.  I've been on both ends of phone support
and in a variety of situations.  Letters towards the top will get
action quite often.


From herb at urusei.net  Wed Aug 13 17:47:58 2003
From: herb at urusei.net (Herb Leong)
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2003 17:47:58 -0700
Subject: DSL recommendations?
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44L0.0308131351530.1471-100000@arrakis.halligan.org>
References: <Pine.LNX.4.44L0.0308131351530.1471-100000@arrakis.halligan.org>
Message-ID: <3F3ADC3E.5050700@urusei.net>

Michael T. Halligan wrote:
> What would everybody recommend?  Cogent, SBC?
> 
> I'm currently using speakeasy, and they're pretty horrible.  They've managed
> to destroy my billing, charging twice in one month on several occassions, etc.
> 
> I went with them because their customer service was renowned, supposedly.. I
> can't even get them to let me speak to a supervisor.  When I ask, I get hung
> up on.. Maybe they're laying off or something.
> 
> My needs are simple, adsl, 1.5mb/768 (preferrably 3.0mb/768 . that's what
> I've got with speakeasy.. only nice thing about them is that).. 5 static ips..
> 
> Any recommendations?

Support has been pretty good for me with Speakeasy--too bad they
dropped the ball with ya.

Try Idiom...  They are local to the Bay Area.

http://www.idiom.com/

/herb



From extasia at extasia.org  Thu Aug 14 13:47:15 2003
From: extasia at extasia.org (David Alban)
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2003 13:47:15 -0700
Subject: [baylisa] SIG-BEER-WEST this Saturday 8/16 in San Francisco
Message-ID: <20030814134715.A30518@gerasimov.net>

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

SIG-beer-west
Saturday, August 16, 2003 at 6:00pm
San Francisco, CA

Beer.   Mental stimulation.

This event: 
  Saturday, 08/16/2003, 6:00pm, at the Toronado, San Francisco

Coming events (third Saturdays): 
  Saturday, 09/20/2003, 6:00pm, location to be determined 
  Saturday, 10/18/2003, 6:00pm, location to be determined 
  Saturday, 11/15/2003, 6:00pm, location to be determined 
  Saturday, 12/20/2003, 6:00pm, location to be determined 

San Francisco's next social event for computer sysadmins and their
friends, sig-beer-west, will take place on Saturday, August 16, 2003
at the [1]Toronado in San Francisco, CA. The Toronado has an
impressive selection of [2]draught and [3]bottled 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.

     [1] http://www.toronado.com/
     [2] http://www.toronado.com/draft.htm
     [3] http://www.toronado.com/bottles.htm

Everyone is welcome at this event. We mean it! Please feel free to
forward this information and to invite friends, co-workers, and others
who might enjoy lifting a glass with interesting folks from all over
the place. (O.K., you do have to be of legal drinking age to attend.)

For directions to the Toronado, please use the [4]excellent directions
at their website. When you show up at the Toronado, you should look
for some kind of home made sig-beer-west sign. We will try to make it
obvious who we are. :-)

     [4] http://www.toronado.com/map.htm

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.

Can't come this month? Mark your calendar for next month.
sig-beer-west is always on the third Saturday of the month.

Any Comments, Questions, or Suggestions of Things to Do Later on That
Evening ... email [5]Fiid or [6]David.

     [5] fiid .AT. fiid .DOT. net
     [6] extasia .AT. extasia .DOT. org

There is a sig-beer-west mailing list. To subscribe, send an email
with "subscribe" in the body to <sig-beer-west-request at fiid.net>.

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 event.

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 hang out with fun, interesting
       folks.  Please do join us.

3.  Q: Is parking difficult around the Toronado, like maybe I should
       factor this into my travel time?
    A: Yes.
______________________________________________________________________

sig-beer-west was started in February 2002 when a couple Washington,
D.C. based systems administrators who moved to the San Francisco Bay
area wanted to continue a [7]dc-sage 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.
______________________________________________________________________

     [7] http://www.dc-sage.org/


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From strata at virtual.net  Mon Aug 18 15:53:44 2003
From: strata at virtual.net (Strata R Chalup)
Date: Mon, 18 Aug 2003 15:53:44 -0700
Subject: BayLISA Monthly: 8/21/03: Samba 3.0, the Demise of CIFS, and more:
 Jeremy Allison
Message-ID: <3F4158F8.1010108@virtual.net>


       BayLISA Monthly Technical Talk & General Meeting

--------
Please RSVP to rsvp at baylisa.org so that we can get an idea of how many
will be attending.  This event is open to the general public, you do not
need to be a member to attend.
--------
Where: Apple Computer, De Anza Bldg 3, "The Piano Bar" conference room
Addr:  10500 N. De Anza Blvd, Cupertino, CA
http://www.baylisa.org/locations/current.html
--------
Date:  Thursday, 21 August 2003
Time:  7:30pm - 9:30pm PST

		Samba 3.0, the Demise of CIFS, and more.

Join us for a look at what's new in Samba 3, and some status
changes in CIFS.  Jeremy will reprise portions of his keynote
from the recent CIFS conference and bring us all up to date on
where things are heading.

--------
BayLISA meets every month on the 3rd Thursday of the month.  A short
period of announcements of general interest to the sysadmin community is
presented, followed by a technical talk.  Anyone may make an
announcement; typical are upcoming presentations, user group meetings,
employment offers, etc.

For further information on BayLISA, check out our web site:
http://www.baylisa.org/

Directions and details about the current meeting and future events:
http://www.baylisa.org/events/

BayLISA makes video tapes of the meetings available to members.  Tape
library is often available at the general meeting, or for more
information on
available videos, please send email to "video at baylisa.org".

If you have suggestions for speakers, or would like to volunteer to
present
a talk at one of our meetings, please email the Board and Working Group
at "blw at baylisa.org".  Thanks!
--------
Please RSVP to rsvp at baylisa.org so that we can get an idea of how many
will be attending.  This event is open to the general public, you do not
need to be a member to attend.
--------

Strata R. Chalup
BayLISA Board Member










From matt at offmyserver.com  Wed Aug 20 15:06:05 2003
From: matt at offmyserver.com (Matt Olander)
Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2003 15:06:05 -0700
Subject: Product review and beta sites wanted: AstroFlowGuard
Message-ID: <20030820150604.P24553@knight.ixsystems.net>

Hi,

I'm the CTO at OffMyServer, a local systems vendor.  We're looking for
technical commentary and reviews of our AstroFloGuard product, as well
as a limited number of eval sites.  The short version:

  Us: Provide a full technical briefing (no marketing, I promise!), a
  hands-on introduction to the product and time to play with it on a
  test network and ask all the hard questions you want.
  
  You: Network or system administrator with background in small to
  medium sized businesses, departmental networks, or smaller ISPs (say
  50 - 500 nodes) who wants the chance to influence the development of a
  network management and monitoring product.

The basic feature list of the AstroFlowGuard is:
   
  Linux based 1U rackmount appliance with simple LCD-panel based initial
  configuration.

  Intended as more featured firewall and network management and
  monitoring station for small to medium sized sites.  Capable of
  handling up to 100Mb and would be typically deployed at enterprise,
  ISP, or ASP type companies or networks with multiple LAN/WANs.
  (AstroFlowGuard was initially developed by and for a mid-size ISP).

  Browser based UI (currently only IE but soon to be any browser
  compatible) for all features.

  Bandwidth management with real time reporting, time based management,
  auto-configuration, per-protocol and protocol family limits and
  management.

  Stateful Packet Filtering Firewall (iptables) with all the normal
  bells and whistles.

  All the normal protocol proxies.

  Real-time traffic analysis and packet logging on IP networks with IDS
  features and alerts.

  Fully IPSec capable (FreeSWAN) as a terminus or router.

  ...bits that I'm not allowed to mention publicly right now.

If you are interested, please email afg at offmyserver.com or call
(408)943-4108 and we'll schedule a time between August 27th and 29th to
drop by.  We'll provide snacks, coffee, a hands-on walkthrough of the
product, time to experiment and explore, and the chance to influence how
AstroFlowGuard develops and best changes to suit your needs.

cheers,
-matt

-- 
Matt Olander               (408)943-4100 Phone
Chief Technology Officer   (408)943-4101 Fax
OffMyServer, Inc.          http://www.offmyserver.com
"Building, managing, and hosting Linux and BSD systems since 1994"
--


From bill at wards.net  Wed Aug 20 15:09:20 2003
From: bill at wards.net (William R Ward)
Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2003 15:09:20 -0700
Subject: New announcement mailing list for PenLUG: penlug-announce
Message-ID: <16195.61840.89956.188150@komodo.home.wards.net>


If you'd like to find out about the lateste Peninsula Linux events but
don't want the rest of the traffic on the penlug-members mailing list,
we have a new announce list which should meet your needs.

To subscribe, go to
	http://www.penlug.org/mailman/listinfo/penlug-announce
and enter your email address and a password.

--Bill.

-- 
William R Ward            bill at wards.net          http://www.wards.net/~bill/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
           PROFESSIONAL PROGRAMMER, CLOSED COURSE.  DO NOT ATTEMPT.



From david at catwhisker.org  Thu Aug 21 05:38:01 2003
From: david at catwhisker.org (David Wolfskill)
Date: Thu, 21 Aug 2003 05:38:01 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Anyone else seeing a huge spike in attempts to (ab)use loc-srv (135/tcp)?
Message-ID: <200308211238.h7LCc1TB011769@bunrab.catwhisker.org>

Now that I'm back from wandering through Oregon, I'm trying to get back
to the routine stuff -- one aspect of which is reviewing various logs
on a regular basis.

I grant that I was away for over a week, did not have Internet connectivity
for most of that, and that the newspapers I read didn't tend to cover
technology issues much (if at all).

But I wasn't really prepared for the huge spike I'm seeing in such
events as:

Aug 20 20:52:43 janus /kernel: ipfw: 20000 Deny TCP 63.193.123.61:2075 63.193.123.122:135 in via dc0
Aug 20 20:52:53 janus last message repeated 2 times
Aug 20 20:58:01 janus /kernel: ipfw: 20000 Deny TCP 63.191.136.90:4855 63.193.123.122:135 in via dc0
Aug 20 20:58:04 janus /kernel: ipfw: 20000 Deny TCP 63.189.192.53:4607 63.193.123.122:135 in via dc0
Aug 20 20:58:08 janus /kernel: ipfw: 20000 Deny TCP 63.156.181.173:4320 63.193.123.122:135 in via dc0
Aug 20 21:00:00 bunrab newsyslog[9927]: logfile turned over due to size>100K
Aug 20 21:00:00 bunrab newsyslog[9927]: logfile turned over due to size>100K
Aug 20 21:03:54 janus /kernel: ipfw: 20000 Deny TCP 65.177.40.173:3030 63.193.123.122:135 in via dc0
Aug 20 21:04:00 janus /kernel: ipfw: 20000 Deny TCP 63.191.200.217:3360 63.193.123.122:135 in via dc0

("janus" is the firewall, and it logs to "bunrab" -- thus the whimper
from bunrab about the logfile size.)

The list of these is even greater than the list of maillog lines from
rejected mail for the day, by a factor of at least 2.  And that's saying
something.

Note that this is merely for my home net, which ought not have much in
the way of a high profile.

Is this, perhaps, yet an additional manifestation of the virus-du-jour
for Microsoft-based machines (and thus, additional evidence that they
ought to be firewalled off from access to any resources about which a
reasonable person might care)?

Peace,
david
- 
David H. Wolfskill				david at catwhisker.org
If you want true virus-protection for your PC, install a non-Microsoft OS
on it.  Plausible candidates include FreeBSD, Linux, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and
Solaris (in alphabetical order).


From claw at kanga.nu  Thu Aug 21 06:14:38 2003
From: claw at kanga.nu (J C Lawrence)
Date: Thu, 21 Aug 2003 09:14:38 -0400
Subject: Anyone else seeing a huge spike in attempts to (ab)use loc-srv (135/tcp)? 
In-Reply-To: Message from David Wolfskill <david@catwhisker.org> 
   of "Thu, 21 Aug 2003 05:38:01 PDT." <200308211238.h7LCc1TB011769@bunrab.catwhisker.org> 
References: <200308211238.h7LCc1TB011769@bunrab.catwhisker.org> 
Message-ID: <13072.1061471678@kanga.nu>

On Thu, 21 Aug 2003 05:38:01 -0700 (PDT) 
David Wolfskill <david at catwhisker.org> wrote:

> Is this, perhaps, yet an additional manifestation of the virus-du-jour
> for Microsoft-based machines (and thus, additional evidence that they
> ought to be firewalled off from access to any resources about which a
> reasonable person might care)?

Without answering the question I'll note that I've been receiving almost
1,000 bounces or we-couldn't-deliver-your-message-coz-it-had-a-virus
messages per day on my personal account for the last few days due to the
Windows virus de jour.  All the original messages are of course
forgeries -- but the bouncing MTAs don't know that.

"Tiresome" is not quite the word.

-- 
J C Lawrence                
---------(*)                Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas. 
claw at kanga.nu               He lived as a devil, eh?		  
http://www.kanga.nu/~claw/  Evil is a name of a foeman, as I live.


From holland at guidancetech.com  Thu Aug 21 09:15:05 2003
From: holland at guidancetech.com (Rich Holland)
Date: Thu, 21 Aug 2003 12:15:05 -0400
Subject: Anyone else seeing a huge spike in attempts to (ab)use loc-srv (135/tcp)? 
In-Reply-To: <13072.1061471678@kanga.nu>
Message-ID: <010301c367ff$62a137c0$c8964790@hackintosh>

I believe the port 135 probes are Blaster, and the spam bounces you're
seeing are the fallout from Sobig.F.

Blaster had a fix released in Mid june or july that nobody applied
(apparantly).  About the time that was starting to get under control,
the new Sobig variant came out in typical fashon.  Like Klez, it forges
sender information from your outlook address book, so anything that
bounces is (incorrectly) routed back to the faked sender...

I've gotten both infected messages as well as bounces.  Spambayes has
handled both magnificently.

Rich
-- 
Rich Holland        (913) 645-1950        SAP Technical Consultant
print unpack("u","92G5S\=\"!A;F]T:&5R(\'!E<FP\@:&%C:V5R\"\@\`\`");

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-baylisa at baylisa.org 
> [mailto:owner-baylisa at baylisa.org] On Behalf Of J C Lawrence
> Sent: Thursday, August 21, 2003 9:15 AM
> To: David Wolfskill
> Cc: baylisa at baylisa.org
> Subject: Re: Anyone else seeing a huge spike in attempts to 
> (ab)use loc-srv (135/tcp)? 
> 
> 
> On Thu, 21 Aug 2003 05:38:01 -0700 (PDT) 
> David Wolfskill <david at catwhisker.org> wrote:
> 
> > Is this, perhaps, yet an additional manifestation of the 
> virus-du-jour 
> > for Microsoft-based machines (and thus, additional evidence 
> that they 
> > ought to be firewalled off from access to any resources 
> about which a 
> > reasonable person might care)?
> 
> Without answering the question I'll note that I've been 
> receiving almost 1,000 bounces or 
> we-couldn't-deliver-your-message-coz-it-had-a-virus
> messages per day on my personal account for the last few days 
> due to the Windows virus de jour.  All the original messages 
> are of course forgeries -- but the bouncing MTAs don't know that.
> 
> "Tiresome" is not quite the word.
> 
> -- 
> J C Lawrence                
> ---------(*)                Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas. 
> claw at kanga.nu               He lived as a devil, eh?		  
> http://www.kanga.nu/~claw/  Evil is a name of a foeman, as I live.
> 
> 



From chuck+baylisa at snew.com  Thu Aug 21 13:08:21 2003
From: chuck+baylisa at snew.com (Chuck Yerkes)
Date: Thu, 21 Aug 2003 16:08:21 -0400
Subject: Product review and beta sites wanted: AstroFlowGuard
In-Reply-To: <20030820150604.P24553@knight.ixsystems.net>
References: <20030820150604.P24553@knight.ixsystems.net>
Message-ID: <20030821200821.GE12646@snew.com>

Quoting Matt Olander (matt at offmyserver.com):
> Hi,
Hi.

> The basic feature list of the AstroFlowGuard is:
>   Linux based 1U rackmount appliance with simple LCD-panel based initial
>   configuration.
Neat.

>   Intended as more featured firewall and network management and
>   monitoring station for small to medium sized sites.  Capable of
Well, a firewall to me doesn't have all this other stuff - it compromises
it's features as a firewall, but I understand.

>   Browser based UI (currently only IE but soon to be any browser
>   compatible) for all features.

We like "HTML".   HTML is what made the web take off.  MS-HTML is
bad.  I get sort of pedantic about actually generating proper HTML.
I validate it with validator.w3.org (actually I use iCab on a Mac
which has an HTML 3.2 and HTML 4.0 validator built in).

Notes failed in many respects as an information repository
because it was proprietary.  I remember ATT annoucing a huge
Notes data repository for intercompany information sharing.
It was a room the size of a large gymnasium.  I saw it as they
were bringing it down, 18 months after announcing it, to use
the space and rack sfor ATT Worldmail.  Why did it fail?
Notes is proprietary.  The WorldWide Web slammed it to the ground.

The WWW took off because it was based on fairly simple, OPEN
STANDARDS.  http transfered the data, HTML was used to render it
on the screen.  It didn't matter if the server was OS/2, a Microsoft,
Unix, Mac or VMS.  It didn't matter if the client was Mac, PC,
Unix, whatever.

Open Standards meant I can use Opera, Mozilla, IE, iCab, w3m, lynx,
Safari, Konqueror, www, Netscape, or several other clients to read
a Web Site.

That said, lots of sites look like crap because, well, they don't
use HTML.  They use stuff that looks like HTML, but doesn't render
EXCEPT IN INTERNET EXPLORER.

I don't live in a Windows world.  I've neither rebooted nor updated
my OS in the last month 3 times to stop REALLY NASTY and crippling
security problems.

My web page has a note, a bit sarcastic:
     "This page best viewed with a computer"


In short, I REALLY encourage you to ensure that you're box is making
real HTML.  We don't tolerate "close to" SMTP or "almost TCP/IP" to 
get mail and other traffic around.  I don't have much patience with
tools that say "Oh, you need to use Internet Explorer".

If they say that, then it's not usable by open systems.  You might
as well write a more effiecient proprietary controller that just runs
on Windows.  You can keep a TCP session open to your box and not worry
about the inefficiencies of HTTP and short lived, hard to authenticate
sessions.

I'll not mumble about running an IDS on a firewall and the issues
of Watching the watcher here.


From ea_baylisa at sfik.com  Thu Aug 21 14:25:56 2003
From: ea_baylisa at sfik.com (Simon Cooper)
Date: Thu, 21 Aug 2003 14:25:56 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Anyone else seeing a huge spike in attempts to (ab)use loc-srv
 (135/tcp)? 
In-Reply-To: <13072.1061471678@kanga.nu>
References: <200308211238.h7LCc1TB011769@bunrab.catwhisker.org> 
 <13072.1061471678@kanga.nu>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.53.0308211412350.1232@harun.sfik.com>

On Thu, 21 Aug 2003, J C Lawrence wrote:

> On Thu, 21 Aug 2003 05:38:01 -0700 (PDT)
> David Wolfskill <david at catwhisker.org> wrote:
>
> > Is this, perhaps, yet an additional manifestation of the virus-du-jour
> > for Microsoft-based machines (and thus, additional evidence that they
> > ought to be firewalled off from access to any resources about which a
> > reasonable person might care)?
>
> Without answering the question I'll note that I've been receiving almost
> 1,000 bounces or we-couldn't-deliver-your-message-coz-it-had-a-virus
> messages per day on my personal account for the last few days due to the
> Windows virus de jour.  All the original messages are of course
> forgeries -- but the bouncing MTAs don't know that.
>
> "Tiresome" is not quite the word.

IANAL and don't know much about filing small claims.  Since this loss of use
of both computing resources and bandwidth is _directly_ related to a flaw in
Microsoft windows has anyone considered filing a small claim against
Microsoft?  The actual amounts are unlikely to be large, but Microsoft will
be obliged to respond to them, if there are 1,000 of them their Lawyer bills
are going to get large and that may then become a "significant" issue.

I do seem to recall that there is a limit on how many times you can claim in
small claims court, so this may not be effective over the long term.

Simon.


From star at starshine.org  Thu Aug 21 15:43:39 2003
From: star at starshine.org (Heather Stern)
Date: Thu, 21 Aug 2003 15:43:39 -0700
Subject: BayLISA tonight!
Message-ID: <20030821224339.GC31937@starshine.org>


I'm sorry I'm posting this so late in the afternoon!  But if you're 
an interrupt driven soul like me, then even belated, it's probably 
a good thing I'm mentioning the BayLISA meeting.

Otherwise, you might miss out on seeing Jeremy Allison talk about the
all new goodies in Samba 3.0, how many CIFS vendors can squirm about his
recent keynote, and all around good stuff.  If you've been in hiding 
from filesharing services (can't blame you) - Samba is the stuff that
speaks with MS Windows peer-to-peer networks, among others.

	Where - Just In Case You're Confused -
		De Anza Building Three.   
		Blue Apples Parking Lot.
		Just south of Mariani, and north of "Donut Wheel".
		South of 280 at de Anza, North of Stevens Creek.

	When - 7:30 pm to 9:30... ih, maybe 10.
		Perfectly fine to show up at 7 pm.
		Announcements ok at the microphone, keep it short.

	After - some of us may head out to dinner
		Our choices are slim though 
		- BJs close by
		- Duke of Edinburgh pub at Wolfe, one exit away
		- TGI Fridays, same freeway exit
		- a chinese place south on De Anza but before 
		  Stevens Creek

Membership Specials
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is the last month we will be having our Two For One membership
special.  Individuals only, same type of members, one must be a 
completely new never-bee-n-a-BayLISA-member-before membership.

Confirm  your membership with the Treasurer to recieve your LNX-BBC 
with BayLISA's own art on it.  If you don't use PCs, save it for the
time when you need to rescue one anyway, because we're sysadmins and 
they expect us to know about these things...


Request For Cookies
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There are rumors that a corporate group will be sponsoring the snacks,
but we're not sure of the details.  However, nothing prevents BayLISA
members form contributing to the snack pile.  Brownies, cheeses,
anything which is not big and mushy enough to require dishes.  Thanks.

I'll see you there!  :D

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


From alvin at Mail.Linux-Consulting.com  Thu Aug 21 15:43:25 2003
From: alvin at Mail.Linux-Consulting.com (Alvin Oga)
Date: Thu, 21 Aug 2003 15:43:25 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Anyone else seeing a huge spike in attempts to (ab)use loc-srv (135/tcp)? 
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.53.0308211412350.1232@harun.sfik.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.96.1030821153928.19404B-100000@Maggie.Linux-Consulting.com>


On Thu, 21 Aug 2003, Simon Cooper wrote:

> IANAL and don't know much about filing small claims.  Since this loss of use
> of both computing resources and bandwidth is _directly_ related to a flaw in
> Microsoft windows has anyone considered filing a small claim against
> Microsoft?  The actual amounts are unlikely to be large, but Microsoft will
> be obliged to respond to them, if there are 1,000 of them their Lawyer bills
> are going to get large and that may then become a "significant" issue.
> 
> I do seem to recall that there is a limit on how many times you can claim in
> small claims court, so this may not be effective over the long term.

no limits per se

in santa clara county...
you can have 2 filings of no more than $5K each over 365 day period

and after that, you can file as many claims as you want for no more then
$2500.oo each 

	- small claim fees of abour $22 - $35 range is not an issue
	( if you win, you get it back )

c ya
alvin




From chuck+baylisa at snew.com  Thu Aug 21 15:58:23 2003
From: chuck+baylisa at snew.com (Chuck Yerkes)
Date: Thu, 21 Aug 2003 18:58:23 -0400
Subject: Anyone else seeing a huge spike in attempts to (ab)use loc-srv (135/tcp)?
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.53.0308211412350.1232@harun.sfik.com>
References: <200308211238.h7LCc1TB011769@bunrab.catwhisker.org> <13072.1061471678@kanga.nu> <Pine.LNX.4.53.0308211412350.1232@harun.sfik.com>
Message-ID: <20030821225823.GA15409@snew.com>

I'd imagine you'd have to prove that you MUST be on
the Internet.  Better argument being the Windows users
who have to hire staff to deal with this.  Better
answer being to dump Windows and use something that
works right and isn't a risk to your business or
to your assets and shareholder value.

You can do 3 small claims in a year (AFAIR) before the fee
goes up a bunch.

Quoting Simon Cooper (ea_baylisa at sfik.com):
> On Thu, 21 Aug 2003, J C Lawrence wrote:
> 
> > On Thu, 21 Aug 2003 05:38:01 -0700 (PDT)
> > David Wolfskill <david at catwhisker.org> wrote:
> >
> > > Is this, perhaps, yet an additional manifestation of the virus-du-jour
> > > for Microsoft-based machines (and thus, additional evidence that they
> > > ought to be firewalled off from access to any resources about which a
> > > reasonable person might care)?
> >
> > Without answering the question I'll note that I've been receiving almost
> > 1,000 bounces or we-couldn't-deliver-your-message-coz-it-had-a-virus
> > messages per day on my personal account for the last few days due to the
> > Windows virus de jour.  All the original messages are of course
> > forgeries -- but the bouncing MTAs don't know that.
> >
> > "Tiresome" is not quite the word.
> 
> IANAL and don't know much about filing small claims.  Since this loss of use
> of both computing resources and bandwidth is _directly_ related to a flaw in
> Microsoft windows has anyone considered filing a small claim against
> Microsoft?  The actual amounts are unlikely to be large, but Microsoft will
> be obliged to respond to them, if there are 1,000 of them their Lawyer bills
> are going to get large and that may then become a "significant" issue.
> 
> I do seem to recall that there is a limit on how many times you can claim in
> small claims court, so this may not be effective over the long term.


From jimd at starshine.org  Thu Aug 21 16:45:05 2003
From: jimd at starshine.org (jimd at starshine.org)
Date: Thu, 21 Aug 2003 23:45:05 +0000
Subject: Anyone else seeing a huge spike in attempts to (ab)use loc-srv (135/tcp)?
In-Reply-To: <20030821225823.GA15409@snew.com>
References: <200308211238.h7LCc1TB011769@bunrab.catwhisker.org> <13072.1061471678@kanga.nu> <Pine.LNX.4.53.0308211412350.1232@harun.sfik.com> <20030821225823.GA15409@snew.com>
Message-ID: <20030821234505.GA15408@mercury.starshine.org>

On Thu, Aug 21, 2003 at 06:58:23PM -0400, Chuck Yerkes wrote:
> I'd imagine you'd have to prove that you MUST be on
> the Internet.  Better argument being the Windows users
> who have to hire staff to deal with this.  Better
> answer being to dump Windows and use something that
> works right and isn't a risk to your business or
> to your assets and shareholder value.

 I don't think I need to prove that I "must be o the Internet" to
 claim that this flaw has has a tortious effect on a service that
 I've subscribed to.  If someone scratches my car I don't have to
 prove that I needed to drive, nor that I needed a pristine
 paint job on it.  It was still a tort.

 To prevail I think you'd have to show that Microsoft had a
 reasonable duty to make their systems secure against these sorts
 of exploits.  You're essentially making a "defective products"
 case; claiming that defects in their products are injurying
 you.

 Their warranty disclaimers are in a licensing agreement between
 them and their customers.  We as third parties are not party to
 those liability and warranty disclaimers so that doesn't affect
 the merits of our case directly.

 However, indirectly we may not be able to sue them; they may
 successfully claim that their warranties leave their customers
 liable for any injurious use of their products.  Basically it's
 the old: "We told you not to use this in any life/health critical
 applications, so we can't be held liable because a BSoD killed
 your patient" dodge.

 IANAL, but I suspect this approach won't go far.  You'd end up
 having to sue the various parties who's systems have been directly
 involved in the injury to you.

 As for a class action defective products suit --- arguing that
 MS sold products with implied claims of a "fitness to purpose" for 
 connection directly to the Internet, and thus caused you harm
 by the defects in said products --- a well funded, highly motivated
 legal team might make hay with this.  It would take years and
 we, as consumers might each get 20 cent checks that cost twice 
 that in postage and five times that in paper and processing fees.

 Microsoft's counter argument would probably be that other operating
 systems have historically had similar defects (and they might cite
 the Morris worm as an example).  We could argue that the most
 popular competing products (MacOS X and Linux) have been shown to
 be at least an order of magnitude less vulnerable --- but they'd
 argue that we're two orders of magnitude less pervasive, etc.

 Well, that's enough of that little chess problem.  :)

--
Jim Dennis 



From fscked at pacbell.net  Fri Aug 22 07:51:00 2003
From: fscked at pacbell.net (richard childers / kg6hac)
Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2003 07:51:00 -0700
Subject: postmasterly responsibilities
In-Reply-To: <3F46255E.4030809@pacbell.net>
References: <200308211543.h7LFhM2n012515@bunrab.catwhisker.org> <3F46255E.4030809@pacbell.net>
Message-ID: <3F462DD4.1090300@pacbell.net>

David,


I couldn't help but notice that in your last mail, disavowing 
responsibility for anything related to the 'chat' mailing list, 
specifically, that you omitted identifying whom had assumed this 
responsibility.

It does not seem unreasonable to ask if, when you requested that you be 
relieved of responsibility for the 'chat' mailing list ... or were 
relieved of responsibility for it, by the Board of Directors ... if, by 
any chance, the Board of Directors identified the individual(s) to whom 
they were transferring this responsibility?

It also seems fairly straightforward to wonder why the Board of 
Directors would relieve you of all responsibility for the -one- mailing 
list that requires the -least- work ... insofar as it has no limits on 
what may be discussed, the last time we discussed this. Can you cast any 
light on this decision?


Also, where might I see the minutes of the Board of Directors' meetings, 
if I were so inclined as to scrutinize them?

They -are- public records, right?

(Perhaps they are already on the website? No, they don't seem to be. Why 
not? Will it be deemed inappropriate, if I publically call for the 
minutes to be uploaded, in a timely manner, after each meeting?)


Yours for freedom of speech and representative democracy - and peace, 
too, but in that order,


-- richard

Richard Childers
(415) 759-5571
fscked at pacbell.net
https://www.daemonized.com






From fscked at pacbell.net  Fri Aug 22 11:05:15 2003
From: fscked at pacbell.net (richard childers / kg6hac)
Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2003 11:05:15 -0700
Subject: regarding huge spikes
Message-ID: <3F465B5B.5090701@pacbell.net>

I've found that turning off ICMP replies in the firewall brought the 
traffic to 135 to a halt.


-- richard





From david at catwhisker.org  Fri Aug 22 11:26:32 2003
From: david at catwhisker.org (David Wolfskill)
Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2003 11:26:32 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: regarding huge spikes
In-Reply-To: <3F465B5B.5090701@pacbell.net>
Message-ID: <200308221826.h7MIQWXb017946@bunrab.catwhisker.org>

>Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2003 11:05:15 -0700
>From: richard childers / kg6hac <fscked at pacbell.net>
>To: baylisa at baylisa.org
>Subject: regarding huge spikes

>I've found that turning off ICMP replies in the firewall brought the 
>traffic to 135 to a halt.

For any particular ICMP message type?

(IMO, blanket cutoff of all ICMP is unlikely to be a good idea, as it
breaks too many useful things -- such as MTU discovery & traceroute.)

For all that, I could adjust my firewall to not bother reporting the
tcp/135 packets it drops on the floor; I already do that for certain
types of traffic I don't care about (and for the reporting of which
merely serves to make the haystack bigger, while I'm looking for
needles).

Peace,
david
-- 
David H. Wolfskill				david at catwhisker.org
If you want true virus-protection for your PC, install a non-Microsoft OS
on it.  Plausible candidates include FreeBSD, Linux, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and
Solaris (in alphabetical order).


From latakaya at us.ibm.com  Fri Aug 22 11:33:20 2003
From: latakaya at us.ibm.com (Leila A Takayama)
Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2003 11:33:20 -0700
Subject: Invitation for an online survey by IBM research
Message-ID: <OFDF3836DD.8C67EAE9-ON87256D8A.006406F4-88256D8A.0065EBB5@us.ibm.com>

Thanks for letting us join in the BayLISA meeting last night! We were 
relieved that the pizzas were finished off so that we wouldn't have to eat 
leftover pizza for the next few weeks. :) I really appreciate all of the 
help that we've received from many BayLISA members already in filling out 
our survey. 

As a small token of thanks, we are sending out amazon.com gift 
certificates via email to everyone who fills it out. 

If you missed the BayLISA meeting last night, I'll reintroduce myself. I'm 
a student intern at IBM Research this summer and my project is studying 
the work practices of system administrators in order to inform the design 
of future sys admin tools. I am not a marketing researcher. I study 
Human-Computer Interaction. Please feel free to voice your opinions here 
because issues you raise will be included in our write-ups for 
publications in the ACM as well as at a panel presentation at the upcoming 
LISA conference. In this way, we are aiming to influence the future 
development of sys admin tools by both IBM and non-IBM companies. 

The online version of the survey is here: 
https://websurveyor.net/wsb.dll/4551/sysadmin.htm

It usually takes about 20 minutes to fill out so if you've got some 
downtime, we welcome your input! 

If you have any questions regarding the survey or the project, please 
contact me directly and I will do my best to answer. 

Thanks a bunch!

Leila

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
IBM Almaden Research Center .:. Summer Intern
User Sciences and Experiences Research (USER)
Mentor: Eser Kandogan <eser at us.ibm.com>
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From claw at kanga.nu  Sat Aug 23 11:08:04 2003
From: claw at kanga.nu (J C Lawrence)
Date: Sat, 23 Aug 2003 14:08:04 -0400
Subject: Product review and beta sites wanted: AstroFlowGuard 
In-Reply-To: Message from Chuck Yerkes <chuck+baylisa@snew.com> 
   of "Thu, 21 Aug 2003 16:08:21 EDT." <20030821200821.GE12646@snew.com> 
References: <20030820150604.P24553@knight.ixsystems.net>  <20030821200821.GE12646@snew.com> 
Message-ID: <18948.1061662084@kanga.nu>

On Thu, 21 Aug 2003 16:08:21 -0400 
Chuck Yerkes <chuck+baylisa at snew.com> wrote:
> Quoting Matt Olander (matt at offmyserver.com):

>> Intended as more featured firewall and network management and
>> monitoring station for small to medium sized sites.  Capable of

> Well, a firewall to me doesn't have all this other stuff - it
> compromises it's features as a firewall, but I understand.

Quite.  Its a scaling question.  For the smaller setups integration
makes some market and deployment sense.  Its not perfect, it suffers
oversight, complexity and audit trail problems, but at those scales it
makes sense.

>> Browser based UI (currently only IE but soon to be any browser
>> compatible) for all features.

> We like "HTML".  

There are a couple bits of the management controls which currently use
VBScript in the same manner many sites use Javascript to make things
like form behaviour a little more "friendly".  It is going to be fixed,
and soon.  You (and others) have been heard.

  Note: It is precisely this sort of feedback (and much else) that Matt
  was looking for.  Just me commenting on how popular iBooks are in
  NOCs, or how much &feature; is needed is a little less convincing than
  half a dozen or more people in the field coming up with , "We need..."
  and "This won't work for us because..." statements.

> Notes failed in many respects as an information repository because it
> was proprietary.  

Notes was also designed with the basic assumption that the corporate
networks it was supposed to manage the data from, would also be
essentially air gapped from the rest of the world -- certainly there
wouldn't be the free flowing bidirectional multi-protocol data exchange
or very transient or uncertain definitions of data ownership we now see
so commonly for the sorts of data sets Notes was intended to handle.

Notes was great for the world it was designed against.  Problem was that
world didn't exist any more (if it ever really did) by the time it
started trying to get into its stride.

> I'll not mumble about running an IDS on a firewall and the issues of
> Watching the watcher here.

True, and its a fair complaint were AFG aimed at a larger deployment
case.

  ObAdmission: I have occasionally consulted for OffMyServer.  I don't
  work for them, am currently under no contract with them, and have no
  formal relationship with them other than knowing the principle people
  in the company socially.  I have even less ties and relationship to
  the AstroFlowGuard product.  

-- 
J C Lawrence                
---------(*)                Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas. 
claw at kanga.nu               He lived as a devil, eh?		  
http://www.kanga.nu/~claw/  Evil is a name of a foeman, as I live.


From matt at offmyserver.com  Sat Aug 23 16:15:08 2003
From: matt at offmyserver.com (Matt Olander)
Date: Sat, 23 Aug 2003 16:15:08 -0700
Subject: Product review and beta sites wanted: AstroFlowGuard
In-Reply-To: <18948.1061662084@kanga.nu>; from claw@kanga.nu on Sat, Aug 23, 2003 at 02:08:04PM -0400
References: <20030820150604.P24553@knight.ixsystems.net> <20030821200821.GE12646@snew.com> <chuck+baylisa@snew.com> <18948.1061662084@kanga.nu>
Message-ID: <20030823161508.A48302@knight.ixsystems.net>

On Sat, Aug 23, 2003 at 02:08:04PM -0400, J C Lawrence wrote:
> > Well, a firewall to me doesn't have all this other stuff - it
> > compromises it's features as a firewall, but I understand.
> 
> Quite.  Its a scaling question.  For the smaller setups integration
> makes some market and deployment sense.  Its not perfect, it suffers
> oversight, complexity and audit trail problems, but at those scales it
> makes sense.

yes, a consolidated box was actually requested from many of our
customers, web hosting and ASP in particular.
however, we did plan for larger company and enterprise use as well so
services can be broken up onto separate appliances and managed from the
same interface ;)

> > We like "HTML".  
> 
> There are a couple bits of the management controls which currently use
> VBScript in the same manner many sites use Javascript to make things
> like form behaviour a little more "friendly".  It is going to be fixed,
> and soon.  You (and others) have been heard.

argh. yes, this was certainly a lack of foresight that I'll admit too.
the move from VBScript (ugh) to Javascript is already in the works and
will be complete in about 4-5 weeks.

>   Note: It is precisely this sort of feedback (and much else) that Matt
>   was looking for.  Just me commenting on how popular iBooks are in
>   NOCs, or how much &feature; is needed is a little less convincing than
>   half a dozen or more people in the field coming up with , "We need..."
>   and "This won't work for us because..." statements.

actually, I did take your iBook remark seriously and passed it along but
yes, the more specific feedback and suggestions from real world
administrators we get, the better the product will be in the end.

> > I'll not mumble about running an IDS on a firewall and the issues of
> > Watching the watcher here.
> 
> True, and its a fair complaint were AFG aimed at a larger deployment
> case.

I agree. we're already talking to very large German ISP that feels
exactly the same way. they are going to use the all-in-one units in
their customer cabinets and are opting for separate, broken out
appliances to run the larger operation.

thanks for the feedback!
-matt

-- 
Matt Olander
Chief Technology Officer
(408)943-4100 Phone
(408)943-4101 Fax
www.offmyserver.com
--
"Those who don't read have no advantage over those who can't"
-Mark Twain


From chuck+baylisa at snew.com  Sat Aug 23 17:10:03 2003
From: chuck+baylisa at snew.com (Chuck Yerkes)
Date: Sat, 23 Aug 2003 20:10:03 -0400
Subject: Product review and beta sites wanted: AstroFlowGuard
In-Reply-To: <20030823161508.A48302@knight.ixsystems.net>
References: <20030820150604.P24553@knight.ixsystems.net> <20030821200821.GE12646@snew.com> <chuck+baylisa@snew.com> <18948.1061662084@kanga.nu> <20030823161508.A48302@knight.ixsystems.net>
Message-ID: <20030824001003.GA5689@snew.com>

Quoting Matt Olander (matt at offmyserver.com):
> On Sat, Aug 23, 2003 at 02:08:04PM -0400, J C Lawrence wrote:
> > > We like "HTML".  
> > 
> > There are a couple bits of the management controls which currently use
> > VBScript in the same manner many sites use Javascript to make things
> > like form behaviour a little more "friendly".  It is going to be fixed,
> > and soon.  You (and others) have been heard.
> 
> argh. yes, this was certainly a lack of foresight that I'll admit too.
> the move from VBScript (ugh) to Javascript is already in the works and
> will be complete in about 4-5 weeks.

I'd still suggest that while Javascript is fine to use if the
browser supports it and it's on, it's terrible to require.

It's very useful to aid a user filling out a form (entering data, whatever)
and ensuring that, say, numbers only are used in a ZIP code.  The data
must still be validated by the form handler, either way, but javascript
lets the user IMMEDIATELY get feedback that it's wrong.

However, when my browsers have Javascript off, it's still a web browser.
And this app won't work?  I blame the app for being broken.

I often find myself ssh'd into some place with many layers of tunnelling
(ssh to Box A which lets me ssh to box B).  I then, often, use tools
like lynx or w3m (text www browsers) to get some tasks done.

In my previous life at a company putting a web based UI infront of complex
software, we ensured that it worked for Netscape/Mozilla, IE and Lynx.
We weren't so pedantic about wellformed HTML (ironic given the product
which will stay unnamed).

> >   Note: It is precisely this sort of feedback (and much else) that Matt
> >   was looking for.  Just me commenting on how popular iBooks are in
> >   NOCs, or how much &feature; is needed is a little less convincing than
> >   half a dozen or more people in the field coming up with , "We need..."
> >   and "This won't work for us because..." statements.
> 
> actually, I did take your iBook remark seriously and passed it along but
> yes, the more specific feedback and suggestions from real world
> administrators we get, the better the product will be in the end.

Now run it with Opera on a PDA; run it with w3m.  Run it on a phone.

You'll start to lose presumptions like 1024/768 screens.

> > > I'll not mumble about running an IDS on a firewall and the issues of
> > > Watching the watcher here.
> > 
> > True, and its a fair complaint were AFG aimed at a larger deployment
> > case.
> 
> I agree. we're already talking to very large German ISP that feels
> exactly the same way. they are going to use the all-in-one units in
> their customer cabinets and are opting for separate, broken out
> appliances to run the larger operation.

Yeah, a friend works with very small IDE boxes - far less than 1U.
Re-worked, you could put 12 of these boards into a 3 or 4 U case.
All separate computers.  OTOH, virtual multiple machines via a vmware
type of trick would give you a full segregation with multiple machines.
(I've also seen 20 linuxes on a mainframe the size of my (modest) TV).


From extasia at extasia.org  Mon Aug 25 11:41:13 2003
From: extasia at extasia.org (David Alban)
Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2003 11:41:13 -0700
Subject: Seeking adsl bridge
Message-ID: <20030825114113.A24054@gerasimov.net>

Greetings!

Anyone have an adsl bridge (possibly a speedstream?) they'd like to sell?

Thanks,
David
-- 
Live in a world of your own, but always welcome visitors.
                                 ***
Cave fruticem.             http://extasia.org/cave-fruticem/
Come to sig-beer-west!     http://extasia.org/sig-beer-west/
Unix sysadmin available:   http://extasia.org/resume/
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From fscked at pacbell.net  Mon Aug 25 12:56:50 2003
From: fscked at pacbell.net (richard childers / kg6hac)
Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2003 12:56:50 -0700
Subject: Seeking adsl bridge
In-Reply-To: <20030825114113.A24054@gerasimov.net>
References: <20030825114113.A24054@gerasimov.net>
Message-ID: <3F4A6A02.8010406@pacbell.net>

I see 'em all the time on Craigslist ...

-- richard


David Alban wrote:

>Greetings!
>
>Anyone have an adsl bridge (possibly a speedstream?) they'd like to sell?
>
>Thanks,
>David
>  
>



From star at starshine.org  Fri Aug 29 11:13:48 2003
From: star at starshine.org (Heather Stern)
Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2003 11:13:48 -0700
Subject: SVLUG's next talk has sysadmin topic
Message-ID: <20030829181348.GA1764@starshine.org>


  If you have the first Wedneesday evening of the month free, September
  3rd, then consider visiting SVLUG, since their meeting topic is:

	System Administrators are Users Too

  The speaker will be from IBM's Almaden research facility.  I think it
  will be interesting, whether you agree or disagree with the premise :D

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