As part of my day to day work I spend a lot of time on the command line. In the vast majority of cases this means ssh into devices as diverse as Linux Servers, Cisco Switches, Juniper Routers and Fortinet Firewalls. While in some cases there will be a GUI available, it's a lot easier to document, script and backup what is being done on the CLI. Ssh also the advantage that it can be accessed on anything from a mobile phone to a perl expect script.
I have had the chance to play with a Dell MD3000i over the last few days, which is basically a rebadged LSI/Engenio SAS Raid Array. It's a nice bit of kit however Dell have seen fit to use the SMI interface for managing the array. The SMI interface is great idea which means that there is a nice "object-oriented, XML-based, messaging-based interface" (buzzword overload!) for doing day to day managment.
There is a CLI interface to this in the form of SMcli. In the case of Dell, this is a java app which requires sacrificing goats and/or virgins in order to get running on anything other that Windows, RHEL or SLES. So much for Java allowing platform independence!
What annoys me is that people have gone to the trouble of creating SMcli, so why not use it as a shell on an ssh server running on the array itself. This would all of sudden mean that they gain a lot more platform independence, and therefore a larger potential market. The other technologies needed in order to setup the MD3000i are iscsi and dm-rdac which are already a solved problem and relatively easy to setup.
Am I mad in thinking that it's in Dell's best interests to put as few obstacles as possible in the way of setting up their products?
I have had the chance to play with a Dell MD3000i over the last few days, which is basically a rebadged LSI/Engenio SAS Raid Array. It's a nice bit of kit however Dell have seen fit to use the SMI interface for managing the array. The SMI interface is great idea which means that there is a nice "object-oriented, XML-based, messaging-based interface" (buzzword overload!) for doing day to day managment.
There is a CLI interface to this in the form of SMcli. In the case of Dell, this is a java app which requires sacrificing goats and/or virgins in order to get running on anything other that Windows, RHEL or SLES. So much for Java allowing platform independence!
What annoys me is that people have gone to the trouble of creating SMcli, so why not use it as a shell on an ssh server running on the array itself. This would all of sudden mean that they gain a lot more platform independence, and therefore a larger potential market. The other technologies needed in order to setup the MD3000i are iscsi and dm-rdac which are already a solved problem and relatively easy to setup.
Am I mad in thinking that it's in Dell's best interests to put as few obstacles as possible in the way of setting up their products?
I'm just after coming across the Stupid Filter project. Now I'm waiting for the Spamassassin and Support Desk plugins!
I had an interesting issue today where up2date was complaining because a package was already installed. The error showed up as follows:
Running "up2date -u --force" just gave me the same error. The eventual solution after much head scratching and wandering down deadends was to run the following commands:Fetching Obsoletes list for channel: rhel-i386-es-4...
Fetching rpm headers...
########################################
Name Version Rel
----------------------------------------------------------
e2fsprogs-devel 1.35 12.11.el46.1 i386
gd 2.0.28 5.4E.el46.1 i386
krb5-devel 1.3.4 54 i386
krb5-libs 1.3.4 54 i386
openssl 0.9.7a 43.17.el46.1 i386
openssl-devel 0.9.7a 43.17.el46.1 i386
perl 5.8.5 36.el45.2 i386
tzdata 2007k 2.el4 noarch
Testing package set / solving RPM inter-dependencies...
########################################
RPM package conflict error. The message was:
Test install failed because of package conflicts:
package perl-5.8.5-36.el45.2 is already installed
up2date --get perlOnce this was finish, "up2date -u" happily went about it's business again.
rpm -Uvh --force perl-5.8.5-36.el4_5.2.i386.rpm
Just after having a rare look through my "High Spam" folder, and there is a massive amount of the usual Male Enhancement spam there. The spammers aren't sending all this just for fun of it, so there has to be idiots in the world who happily click on the links and buy the product.
I wonder how ethical it would be for ISPs to send out a fake spam to customers with a link to an ISP controlled site. If they click on the Pay button and enter credit card details, have the confirmation page tell them something like:
It would probably break more data privacy and trade description laws than I know exist, but it could dry up one form of spammer income in a hurry :)
Wishful thinking?
I wonder how ethical it would be for ISPs to send out a fake spam to customers with a link to an ISP controlled site. If they click on the Pay button and enter credit card details, have the confirmation page tell them something like:
"We know who you are and we have your account details. If you click on a spam like this again we will list your name and address on a public list of idiots. Your credit card has been charged a €5 stupidity fine".
It would probably break more data privacy and trade description laws than I know exist, but it could dry up one form of spammer income in a hurry :)
Wishful thinking?
I went to vote at Golden Spider's public vote page. First of all they have this gem:
To the developers of the Golder Spiders Website, please go and read the Wikipedia article on Security Through Obscurity. Not everyone uses CSS, prime example being blind people who use screen readers!
In this years Golden Spider awards, the judges will select the winners from all twenty categories, including the Best Blog and Best Social Networking site categories. We would also like to get YOUR opinion on the best Blog and social networking site categories. Choose from the nominations below, enter your email address and submit your vote.This me reads very much like "Our judges know best, but we want you to feel loved". I submitted my vote anyway and got the lovely "Your Vote has been cast. Thank you for voting on both Categories." page. Out of boredom I viewed the source, and spotted the following:
I disabled CSS, selected two different options, entered a different email and it gladly accepted the new details. They do actually check to make sure that the email address you enter is used only once, but I have an infinite number of email addresses to use as they don't seem to verify the emails.<div class="display_none">
<form name="PublicVoting" method="post" action="publicvote.php" onsubmit="return validatePV();">
.....
To the developers of the Golder Spiders Website, please go and read the Wikipedia article on Security Through Obscurity. Not everyone uses CSS, prime example being blind people who use screen readers!
I created a quick Opensearch file to add the PHP Function search to my search bar. If anyone is interested it's available here.
Update: To make life even easier, use ctrl-k to select the search box, ctrl-up and ctrl-down to select the different search providers.
Update: To make life even easier, use ctrl-k to select the search box, ctrl-up and ctrl-down to select the different search providers.
I ordered a nice new toy from Komplett over the weekend and got a email with a "Track And Trace" code for DHL Europlus. I went to www.dhl.ie, saw a nice DHL Fast Track search box on the top right and entered my code. I got a page
entitled "Tracking Good Afternoon" (at 6 in the evening) and search
boxes all over the place. Besides not looking well in Firefox, it didn't show the code I had just entered anywhere.
I put my code in the top search box (Air Express), pressed search, and up popped a box saying entitled "DHL Road Express Shipment" telling me:
The point of this rant? Their system was smart enough to realise that the code I entered was a European Road Express TrackNet code. Why didn't it simply redirect to the proper page from the main page rather than carrying me into a page with multiple search boxes? Instead of a popup explaining where I need to go, why doesn't it redirect to the right page? Or even a link to the right page in the popup? Was there any UI testing done at all on the site?
I was talking to someone who once worked in a company bought by DHL. I was told that their biggest problem is that as they are buying up smaller local companies to do local deliveries, they are aren't integrating the new IT systems properly. This does explain why the tracking mightn't as great as it should be. However it doesn't explain why they can't add a small bit of intelligence to their site.
I put my code in the top search box (Air Express), pressed search, and up popped a box saying entitled "DHL Road Express Shipment" telling me:
You may have entered a DHL Road Express Licence Plate Number / Identcode Number.The main page also had a section entitled "DHL Road Express Parcel Tracking", so out of interest I tried the code there and got the same popup. I then clicked the European Road Express TrackNet as they wanted, and figured out how to add my code and submit as needed. The tracking as it turns out is pretty dire. According to them, my package is in Tilberg, NL since yesterday morning. It better be wrong!
Please use the European Road Express Parcel Tracknet below to track this shipment.
The point of this rant? Their system was smart enough to realise that the code I entered was a European Road Express TrackNet code. Why didn't it simply redirect to the proper page from the main page rather than carrying me into a page with multiple search boxes? Instead of a popup explaining where I need to go, why doesn't it redirect to the right page? Or even a link to the right page in the popup? Was there any UI testing done at all on the site?
I was talking to someone who once worked in a company bought by DHL. I was told that their biggest problem is that as they are buying up smaller local companies to do local deliveries, they are aren't integrating the new IT systems properly. This does explain why the tracking mightn't as great as it should be. However it doesn't explain why they can't add a small bit of intelligence to their site.
alias whois='whois -H'Put that in your .bashrc (or equivalent) and get rid of the legal disclaimers which usually mean that you have to scroll up two pages to get the actual results! I should have looked at the whois man page ages ago.
I'm in Heuston Station for a while and I have had to use Eircom wireless to access to the internet. What was disappointing was that the login page for Eircom's wireless does not have a valid SSL cert.
I logged in anyway (naughty, I know) as the IP it was pointing at was an eircom ip, and I am stuck. I am surprised that Eircom can get away without using a valid SSL cert for pages that have to handle credit card details.
I would have thought that one of the requirements for Credit Card processing would be having a valid SSL cert!
I logged in anyway (naughty, I know) as the IP it was pointing at was an eircom ip, and I am stuck. I am surprised that Eircom can get away without using a valid SSL cert for pages that have to handle credit card details.
I would have thought that one of the requirements for Credit Card processing would be having a valid SSL cert!
For those of you who have been following the Monster Spam saga, Grandad's summary of it is a must read!
