Posts made by travisdh1

I have one main server host. The guy I used to work with decided to call it Zuess. I see no reason to change the name of the ruler of them all.

Just for a quick reference, this is my latest iperf run between my workstation and the server. Network is 1GB with 2x1GB LAGs between each switch.

Server listening on TCP port 5001
TCP window size: 85.3 KByte (default)

[ 4] local 192.168.0.20 port 5001 connected with 192.168.0.45 port 60691
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth
[ 4] 0.0-10.0 sec 683 MBytes 572 Mbits/sec
[ 5] local 192.168.0.20 port 5001 connected with 192.168.0.45 port 60715
[ 5] 0.0-10.0 sec 680 MBytes 569 Mbits/sec

It's a little slower than I'd like to see, but that's really not terrible for an in-use network. When everybody else is gone it does go up to the 800Mbits/sec transfer. This of course is not going to give any sort of real bearing on drive speed, just how fast the network can go.

@scottalanmiller said:

@Dashrender said:

Scott - what tool would you use to create a 120 GB file to keep a 1 Gb link saturated for 20 mins (assuming 800 Mb/s transfer)?

dd will do that, if you are on the NAS CLI.

dd in=/dev/zero of=zero.txt bs=4k count=400000

Pay attention to the output when it finished. It will also give you some information on how fast it wrote zeros to the drives. You can then use zero.txt to transfer to different points on the network.

Don't forget to delete that file when you're finished, it's literally 1GB of zeros.

@scottalanmiller said:

@DustinB3403 said:

Thank you!

The community will greatly appreciate it.

As long as you thin provision, it's all the same.

Yep, it is thin provisioned currently, just didn't mention that in my initial notes.

@DustinB3403

@DustinB3403 said:

40GB .....

the base install ask for an 8GB partition unless you have more than 5000 VM's you're managing...

Can you scale it down and re-upload it?

I can make it somewhat smaller, it currently uses 6.12 GB so I suppose I could tone it down to say 12GB. It'll take 2 days to upload again, so be patient please!

Yep, I let it upload over the weekend, and I've now got an ova publicly available for anyone who wants to try it out. I made the ova file with VirtualBox, but you should be able to import it to your favorite platform. Now, onto the important bits.

Download Size: 2.7 GB
Hard Drive: SATA 40GB VMDK
Network: NAT/DHCP
RAM: 2GB (You could drop this to 1GB, needed the extra for compiling everything.)
Server Port: 8080
Normal User: tech (tech types on gui login page)
Pass: default
Root: changeme

A quick usage note. To start the server open a command prompt. Running it as a service didn't work the first time, so I just added it to the tech accounts .bashrc (I was doing this over an evening of my own time, give me a break!)

Edit: The hard drive IS thin provisioned, and only uses 6.12 GB currently.

Steam spent the holiday weekend failing programming 101. https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/3eltkl/whats_happening_was_there_a_security_breach/

Hope you all already had 2nd factor turned on as well!

If you've got Xen working, why still have a second boot option instead of running it in a VM?

I mean, I can understand wanting to experiment, but that's just odd.

@Dashrender

@Dashrender said:

@travisdh1 said:

@BRRABill said:

@scottalanmiller said:

For those wondering where TrueCrypt went, it is now VeraCrypt as was mentioned above. Because the owners accidentally let TC fall into the PD it became de facto open source and got picked up and maintained instantly and audits continued making it still one of the most secure, most audited encryption suites out there. The open source project is hosted by none other than Microsoft themselves on CodePlex.

https://veracrypt.codeplex.com/

Hey that looks just like TC.

Mostly, it is. Some newer encryption options is about the only difference.

Does it support booting in UEFI based OSes yet?

I don't think so, at least not yet. I'm not sure that they are trying to get a UEFI key from Microsoft or not.

@BRRABill said:

@scottalanmiller said:

For those wondering where TrueCrypt went, it is now VeraCrypt as was mentioned above. Because the owners accidentally let TC fall into the PD it became de facto open source and got picked up and maintained instantly and audits continued making it still one of the most secure, most audited encryption suites out there. The open source project is hosted by none other than Microsoft themselves on CodePlex.

https://veracrypt.codeplex.com/

Hey that looks just like TC.

Mostly, it is. Some newer encryption options is about the only difference.

They think you're an IT person who doesn't use their EC2/3 platforms yet, trying to get you to bite the hook.

They do a real good job of baiting the hook.

@scottalanmiller said:

What's a little disturbing is that we can't automatically rule Ohio out as the place for that picture this year.

Uploading an ova of Xen Orchestra I made last night, cause it was quick'n'easy to make (for me). Mostly just waiting, and thankful for good QOS on the internet connection.

@BRRABill said:

I still have the "fear" that an open source product will just go away, where MS Office just won't.

Though since they decommission it, it might as well, right?

How can any open source product "go away"? Even if it's completely dropped from development, IE TrueCrypt, if it's a useful tool someone will pickup it up and continue on, IE VeraCrypt. Whereas if Microsoft decides to drop MS Office, you are up a creek and nobody will be working with the code anymore.

I know how it feels, but it's just feelings. Open source is much more likely to stick around long after the original developers are no longer around.

@DustinB3403 said:

Back to Xen Orchestra, would anyone here use Xen Orchestra and not specifically XOA (the paid option in a Production system) if the software works just as well. All you'd be losing is the "paid support" aspect which you might never use.

Well, considering I spun up a fresh Debian install in VB last night and got the latest test build of Xen Orchestra running, I don't see why not. I've even got it (slowly) uploading to my Google Drive account as an ova so others can easily use it if they'd like. It really should be an option for an all Linux shop.

Edit: complete thoughts help

@DustinB3403 said:

Thank you for the responses, but still no one besides maybe @scottalanmiller has posted why / when businesses choose Open Source over closed source.

Lets take for example Xen Orchestra, I just yesterday compiled the system in my home lab (running on my Xen Server Hypervisor as a VM)

Now I doubt many people would be willing to implement and use Xen Orchestra in a business environment because well, there is no paid support. It's the community edition.

But why not, the software is simply configured by you, supported by you, and at a substantial saving to you. Why is a solution as heavily adored by many professionals looked down upon because it's the "community edition"?

First of all, understand that my situation is very different from most. The people I work for own 5 different companies, and I'm the lone IT person for all of them. Less than 20 total people throughout those 5 companies (putting the small in small business!) Thinking of it as more of a one man MSP would be about right.

Only one of those companies would actually have the cash flow to make paid support an option. Also, when the only servers in the places are used boxes from Stallard Technologies (www.stikc.com), the support and/or licensing for a server OS starts at ~2x what the box its self cost. Add to the mix that I had been an IRIX admin previously, and open source is just the way to go.

So far the only thing that could go wrong from the user side is the internet going down. Which did happen this week due to a hard drive failure and the raid array being in read-only mode on the host while it rebuilt. Yes, the internet routing is being handled by an open source software distribution. The CentOS gives me not only a router, but also IPS, IDS, blind proxy, real-time virus scans, and VPN. Sure a paid solution will offer all those features, but at what price? Especially when I can get it installed and configured in less than an hour.

Within the next year I'll have them setup on a proper domain and file server as well, also all open source. Making user files available for them whatever computer they happen to be in front of at any given point is kinda a big deal. All done with different open source options.

I'll grant you that most admins have been trained in the Microsoft way of doing things rather that the UNIX/IRIX/Linux way. So, business wise, paying for Microsoft Server licensing, rather than complete retaining, makes a lot more sense in those cases.

@scottalanmiller said:

As someone without a home of their own (not even a long term rental to call home) it makes me sad that I have no means of getting nice connections anymore.

Well, you can console yourself with the fact that free wifi is going to be faster than what's available to a home in my area, maybe.

@brianlittlejohn said:

@MattSpeller too much of that dihydrogen monoxide is a killer...

That classic "hold your wee for a Wee contest"

We need to ban dihydrogen monoxide!

@johnhooks said:

@BRRABill said:

@johnhooks said:

He owns Vault Brewing Company.

GET OUT OF TOWN! Are you serious?

Ha ya, we were roommates all through college.

Little did I know that when I said this place felt like home in the introduce yourself thread, I was being literal!

@johnhooks said:

My buddy from college was from Bucks county. He was from Doylestown but he lives in Yardley now.

I'm forever talking about the wrong Doylestown as we've got one in Wayne County as well