Heads up...

[vortex.livejournal.com]

Just so you know, for those of you who use Remote Desktop...one or more of the 4 most recent Windows XP Security updates will prevent Remote Desktop from working.

I was remoted in to my home computers, did the updates, then couldn't connect back to them.

Drove home, tried to connect pc to pc using Remote Desktop and couldn't.
Un-installed those updates, and tested again...success!
Drove back to where I am and am now connected in again...

p.s.
I believe one of the updates was an IE Security update, the others were System Security updates...

We're moving a bunch of major servers tonight.

[margaretc.livejournal.com]

We've been having lots of meetings lately to talk about which machines we can move when, and which machines are critical and which can be moved whenever. We made a list a week ago and confirmed with everyone that it was OK to move $svr1 & $svr2 because they're monitoring machines and don't do any production work.

$blonde_admin: Ok, so I want to move $svr1 & $svr2 tomorrow during the day, since they're non-critical.
@Linux_admins: fine, no problem, sure.
$linux_admin[2]: oh, except that $svr2 is the DHCP server's backup, so you can't move it during business hours.
$blonde_admin: Right, now I want to punch him.
$linux_admin[2]: What? Why?
$boss, $linux_admin[3]: sigh.

Gah!

[spooforbrains.livejournal.com]

A some-time client of mine has a mail/web server hosted at a hosting company. This server is running Debian - fairly stock config - and exim4. I was tasked, some time ago, with configuring this environment appropriately for their webapp - a primary function of which is sending mail.

Well, being unfamiliar with Debian at the time, I did my best, hacked the changes necessary into their existing config and got it working. Some time later, when they wanted SMTP authentication, I did some reading up, and found out the following:

( Cut for boring )

So, I took this opportunity to configure the mail setup properly, using the split config. Took me a few hours one evening to get it all sorted properly. Then, thinking maybe they might see that exim4.conf was missing and think everything was broken, I put the following file, named README.IMPORTANT in the /etc/exim4.conf directory:

( Cut for boring )

Their external firewall was set to forward from a high port, externally, to port 25 on the machine, so that SMTP was accessible externally but on a non-standard port.

Everything was rocking along fine.

So, yesterday I get a mail stating that the mail system is broken, and can I please investigate. A cursory investigation shows me that everything is working on the machine, but the external port is closed. I send a mail back to this effect.

This morning, I notice that mail is working again, and think nothing much more of it.

Some time later, I get ANOTHER mail, reporting that mail is again broken.

So, apparently, their tech has checked the machine in response to a support request, found it not listening on the high port (which it shouldn't, it listens on 25), surmised therefore that everything is broken (which it isn't) and has put back a copy of exim4.conf, overriding all my changes.

*HEADDESK* *HEADDESK*

So now I have to wait for him to finish dicking about before I can check just how badly it's broken and fix it. *sigh*

ETA: I should mention that they put the port forward in place at our request, so they bloody well should have known about it.

Dear lusers,

[tadiera.livejournal.com]

While I respect that you're intelligent enough to realize that if you sign up for a site with a "fake" email address, you won't get spam... It's always a good idea to be sure of two things:

1) That the address is, indeed, fake.
2) That the site doesn't send the username AND password in the email


Because now, I have multiple usernames and passwords at my disposal.

I Like!

[hisamishness.livejournal.com]

<-- clicky to get t-shirt

Update to my previous post

[spooforbrains.livejournal.com]

So, I agree to let the tech sort the problem out and call me back. He doesn't. The machine is rebooted. Nothing comes up. Once I've sorted out Apache and Tomcat (which were fine, thank crap) I turn my attention to exim.

It won't start. The init script does, literally, nothing.

update-exim4.conf returns dependency errors.

It appears that he has attempted to reinstall exim, and it has failed. It further appears that package management on the machine is completely screwed, and it is now running, variously, parts of sarge and parts of etch ... and keeps trying to install parts of Lenny.

It also appears that he has left it in this state and pissed off home for the day.

Having just got off the phone with the absolute senior highest technical if-it-gets-to-me-someone's-getting-a-damned-good-shouting-at-on-Monday manager it appears that Mr Cluess Tech will be being introduced to Big Foam Cluebat on Monday. Hopefully the clueful tech he's getting to sort this out can actually unravel this mess.

ETA: Yup, the machine is right in the middle of dependency hell - and they can't fix it without taking it down. Which they can't do. So they're building a new box to migrate it all over to instead.

I feel great trepidation about this, but ... we'll see what happens. At least they're the poor fuckers working through the night to fix this and not me. For once.