projects.xoff.org

For years, courtesy of a long time friend, I had a co-location box at an ISP’s datacenter. In general, it was really great: I had complete control over the hardware and software, and could do anything I needed to. It was my own server.

But I also had to deal with hardware failures located at a small datacenter across the country: power failures, hardware failures, and the occasional software glitch that broke the machine to the point of needing a physical reboot and in one case an OS reinstall. Over several years, I sent more than a few bottles of booze to my friend’s SysAdmins as thanks for fixing various broken bits, replacing drives, reboots, etc.

About 2 years ago my friend decided that the dialup ISP biz was dead in the area he was in (rural USA, so people actually used dialup…) and politely asked me to vacate.

In searching for a new home on the Internet, I decided to check out virtual hosting: I didn’t *really* need a physical machine in a datacenter, a virtual server (specifically xen, since we use it at work and I’m familiar with it) was just fine. It let me have all the perks of my own machine and none of the hassle.

My criteria were a decent price, complete private access (root), my choice of linux OS (I wanted to use CentOS because, again, its what I use at work), decent bandwidth (both transfer and speed), and company openness/flexibility (I don’t want them telling me what I can and can’t do or what services I can/can’t run, as long as I don’t break any laws).

I looked at pretty much all the VPS (Virtual Private Server) providers out there, and settled on Linode not the least of which because it was recommended by several people in the office, and because its clearly run by geeks.

Linode hits all the criteria on the head: its cheap ($20/mo for the small linode), complete control of the linux OS I install (and therefore I could install CentOS and had root), great bandwidth with multiple datacenters, and its run by geeks, so very flexible and no usage restrictions. Plus, a no obligation free trial. I was up and running within 10 minutes of signing up, and had the OS up, patched, and was installing software immediately. WOW! Add to this an awesome web-based DNS with unlimited access (they don’t restrict how many domains I can have) and its the best choice for a Xen/VPS system around.

2 years later, and I’m still recommending them all the time. They’ve added an API (I just used it to change the TTL on all 20+ of my domains in preparation for a datacenter move), increased both diskspace and memory for no charge (as things have gotten cheaper), and just introduced online backups. Linode’s 7th Anniversary was today, and they upgraded everyone’s memory 42% for free as a thank you to their loyal customers.

If your comfortable with linux and want/need a server, you can’t do better than linode.

…and then Microsoft came out with their own “Security Essentials” free anti-virus. I was dubious at first. If its Microsoft I expected it to be behind the times, bloated, and generally a “hanger on” in the Anti-virus game.

I was wrong. Security Essentials works, is lightweight, stays out of the way, has developed a good track record, and has the single best feature I’ve seen in any antivirus software in years: it automatically updates its definitions before it scans. Wow, brilliant, and nobody else does it.

So if you are using Windows, do yourself a favor and get Security Essentials (from here: www.microsoft.com/security_essentials) instead of any of the others.

For servers, I just don’t see any reason whatsoever to run Windows, an entirely GUI-based OS, on a system that almost by definition nobody will ever see (or access) the GUI on. Its a waste of resources and just makes bloat. Add to that that Windows services (IIS, Active Directory, MS-SQL) tend to be laughable compared to the industry standard open source versions (Apache, OpenLDAP/MIT Kerberos, and Postgresql/Mysql).

Desktops, however, are another matter entirely. I’ll be the first to admit that X Windows is a sad comparison to the OS X and Windows GUIs. Consumer grade OSes win here hands down.

Now, on to Vista: Ugh. I have to say, every time I’ve used it in the past I’ve hated it. Microsoft’s “User Account Control” (UAC) in Vista is just horrible. Its only a slight exaggeration that moving the mouse causes a dialogue asking if its ok that you did that. Now, its easy to turn off but why should I have to? (According to the great geek site Ars Technica, its designed to annoy you). The first Vista Service Pack fixes some of this, but its still not “good.”

So on to the scene comes Windows 7, referred to by some as “Vista Service Pack 7″…Gina Trapani, the creator of Lifehacker said at her new blog, “Its not as bad as you might think”

…And its not! I’ve been running the Release Candidate for a while now, which is available free to download and test (at least until tomorrow). Guess what? Its much better than Vista. Major upgrade, less memory usage, better tools, lots of GUI improvements (many “lifted” from OS X and linux desktops) like window previews (see what a program is doing via a nifty popup when you mouse over its icon in the dock).

Then, just as I was really pleased with Win7, I realized I’d accidentally installed the 32bit version instead of the 64bit version I wanted. I burned the 64bit (which Microsoft mistakenly calls “x64″ instead of “x86_64″ like everyone else does) and booted…and it doesn’t see my SATA controller. WTF? It looks like the issue is solved in the RTM (“Release to Manufacturing”) version, however, so once I can legally obtain a copy I’ll try it out.

(Why 64bit versus 32bit? 64bit bit allows more than 4gb of memory, which is becoming common. Its pretty much the only compelling reason to move to 64bit on Desktops, IMHO)

Words cannot even begin to describe the pain of losing this man, a pillar of the SCA in Atenveldt. He was a friend and mentor for 20 years, and was one of the people who kept me from quitting in disgust before I got my peerage.

He was the consummate practical joker, up to and including putting a literal wall of haybales in front of my tent in the middle of the night while I slept.

Godspeed, my friend. You are sorely missed.

Left to Right: Xoff, Nootka, Raibert, Iain, Larry

Two technologies I never could get working to my satisfaction I now can’t live without: RSS Feeds and IMAP.

RSS Feeds:

RSS (“Really Simple Syndication”) is a nifty way to get updates from almost any website. Pretty much all blogs and content-driven sites now offer RSS feeds, and they simply make life a gazillion times easier. I’d tried RSS several times before, but a combination of poor readers and a lack of feeds always made it a mass of fail. Now-a-days, with readers like Google Reader and everyone offering an RSS feed (and with sites like Feedburner that let you make a feed from anyone who doesn’t) RSS is very ready for primetime.

Put simply, a decent reader and a bunch of RSS feeds let me make a custom “newspaper” that aggregates all my periodic content together in one place. Its especially useful for sites that *occasionally* update (like a piece of software, for example) — I don’t need to remember to regularly check them for updates.

I also cut about an hour per day out of my “check all my followed sites for updates” routine, easily.

IMAP:

IMAP is the “other” common method for checking email on a client, the other being POP. POP is like checking real mail: it takes the mail from the mailbox and into the house (the client). IMAP is like keeping the mail in the box, but I can look at it from anywhere, and anything I do to it (like toss a piece of junk mail) means I don’t have to look at it again.

When you access mail from multiple places (in my case, my iPhone and a web browser, as I’ve tossed any stand-alone client), its the only way to go. Shortest version: If you use an iPhone or other remote reader to check your email in a supplementary way, use IMAP. It’ll save you time and endless “Oh, did I reply to that?” and “Oh, I downloaded it to my phone!” nightmares.

(Edit: the title was badly worded. I love RSS/IMAP, and regret waiting so long to embrace)

The amusing thing is the names these script kiddies try to log in under. Now “root” and “admin” make sense, as do common names like “mike” and “alex”.

But WTF is up with some of these? “Fluffy”? “PlcmSplp”? Seriously?

Edit: I should have googled it first. Turns out that “PlcmSplp” is the default username for a provisioning a Polycom phone via ftp: Polycom Phone Provisioning with AstLinux

Jul 5 20:31:10 node1 sshd[24358]: input_userauth_request: invalid user eaguilar
Jul 5 20:31:19 node1 sshd[24392]: input_userauth_request: invalid user payala
Jul 5 20:31:24 node1 sshd[24409]: input_userauth_request: invalid user estudiante
Jul 5 20:31:27 node1 sshd[24426]: input_userauth_request: invalid user alex
Jul 6 21:45:32 node1 sshd[32092]: input_userauth_request: invalid user apple
Jul 6 21:45:36 node1 sshd[32109]: input_userauth_request: invalid user magazine
Jul 6 21:45:40 node1 sshd[32126]: input_userauth_request: invalid user sophia
Jul 6 23:20:36 node1 sshd[32610]: input_userauth_request: invalid user mike
Jul 6 23:20:40 node1 sshd[32627]: input_userauth_request: invalid user mike
Jul 6 23:20:45 node1 sshd[32644]: input_userauth_request: invalid user PlcmSpIp
Jul 6 23:20:50 node1 sshd[32661]: input_userauth_request: invalid user test
Jul 8 15:02:39 node1 sshd[12183]: input_userauth_request: invalid user fluffy
Jul 8 15:02:43 node1 sshd[12200]: input_userauth_request: invalid user admin
Jul 8 15:02:47 node1 sshd[12217]: input_userauth_request: invalid user test


All the pics are on my photobucket

I really like it. Its decently fast, has a good amount of memory (and since the OS is 64bit, it actually uses it all), a decent sized screen and hard drive. The touchpad is a hair finicky, but I got an external mouse so I’m comfortable.

Its of course now been replaced by the “Studio 15″ models. Models of laptops change constantly.

The kicker is it runs Vista…and XP drivers for newer machines are often simply not available, so I’m kind of stuck with that as a Windows OS. Almost immediately, I deleted Dell’s “recovery partition” (it was a huge 18gb partition!) and installed Ubuntu (a Linux version) so I can dual boot. Now Ubuntu isn’t by any means my favorite version, but it installed flawlessly and everything worked right at install! Laptop components under linux can be hit or miss, because of proprietary drivers (wireless cards are notorious), etc. This is the reason I chose Ubuntu — Dell sells laptops with Ubuntu installed, so I was fairly sure there would be drivers.

A few NASA and mission stickers later (secret NASA technology in the stickers makes anything they are attached to run 10% faster!) and I’m pretty happy with the setup.

Next post: Vista…and Windows 7.