SEMiSLUG Notes
13 December 2001
Question & Answer Sessions
- Any preferences re: Ameritech DSL? (Cable modem, DSL, or dial-up for
a new connection.)
- Cable modems are probably the least hassle. Get the shortest
contract you can.
- JSP: how to get a directory into a var?
- $dir = `ls *`; would work for perl, but no idea how to do it from Java.
Supposedly, you can't do that on the client side. Java isn't supposed
to allow it.
- Any sources for prepaid cellular in da Yoop?
- No one is aware of any. Try a calling card for travel use and an
old bag phone for 911 service.
- 2-way direcPC satellite connectivity -- how is it?
- Nobody's tried it yet. It needs a professional installer to aim
the dish. Chris Polk has had some peripheral contact with it and
says that the latency is bad. Real bad.
- What's going on with Usenix & SAGE?
- Bad communication skills resulting in a demand that two SAGE board
members resign. They resigned and the SAGE board was extremely
miffed. The communications problems were identified and the
Usenix folks apologized to the two former board members.
- Wireless NIC fuctioning as an access point and bridging to an ethernet
in Linux -- any done this? Any caveats?
- It's a lot cheaper (and less painful) to buy a WAP with ethernet.
It might not do just what you want, though.
- The usual jobs question?
- HP keeps trying to recruit MJO -- check with them. EMV knows of a
job in CA, if anyone's interested.
AAA Michigan is looking for someone to do some wiring around the
state.
- Where's a good place to get reasonably priced Palm III stylii? (Stylae?
Stylices? Styla?)
- eBay. (Moot point, since SCS had a spare one.)
- Cheap way to make USB camera portable.
- It depends what you mean by portable. Some sort of wireless
USB extender sounds like what is needed. (No idea if one
works.)
A cheap X10 camera is about $70 ... that might work. A home
security wireless camera.
- Any RFC recommending what a resolver should do with DNS SERVFAIL?
- Yeah ... log it. It's outside the protocol, so there may be no
defined action.
- Antennas (antennae? antennia?) for Lucent 802.3?
- Look at Cringley's site. http://www.pbs.org/cringley/ maybe.
- What's Troy's IP address?
- 127.0.0.1
- Nortel NetID 4.3?
- Nope.
- Any one done any serious TiVO hacking? (As in "at a shell prompt" sort of
hacking.)
- Doesn't sound like it.
- SNMP Linux MRTG?
- SNMP UC-Davis needs to be installed, of course. Don't leave "puplic"
as the community string -- it's amazing how many folks do that.
- Bugzilla: are there alternatives?
- There's always gnats. Bugzilla's got a lot of features, but gnats is
very extendable.
- Komodo experience?
- It's an integrated development environment for Perl/Python/Tcl and
runs in Mozilla. (Go figure.) It's commercial, but word on the
street is that it's worth it. (SCS likes it enough to go with it,
protocol layer 8 allowing.)
- Any OS X experience?
- Danno's played with it a little -- it's reminiscent of NextStep
(surprised?). The OS 9 emulator is far from bugless, but the
OS X code seems solid.
OS X.I disks are around, but no one's played with it.
- Any Source Forge experience?
- There's a GNU version in the works based on the last open source
version of Source Forge. How's that?
- Have you ever been experienced?
- Well ... I have.
- Linux on a PlayStation/2 ... can it be done?
- Ah . . . why? No one here's considered it, but what the heck.
Keep an eye open for more on this -- PS/2's a fine machine for
the price.
It's supposed to boot NetBSD.
- How did Steve's eye surgery go?
- Really well. This laser stuff is getting better all the time.
Steve went to Brighton for the work and is very happy with the
result.
- What's the status of EMV's Wireless Neighborhood Net.
- Ed's meeting all the neighbors. That's the first step.
Check later -- this is bound to be a future presentation you'll
remember and tell your children about.
-
Presentation
Why Your Packets Go Into a Black Hole
= - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - =
We all know the sever-layer protocol stack. (8 is financial, 9 is political,
0 is the power later, -1 is the backhoe layer)
Failures at a low level tend to cascade up.
9 - Political which has judicial and legislative components; both can
cause problems
8 - Financial Bancrupcy can interupt service; so can mergers
Not understanding you assets (and licensing arrangements)
can be a problem
7 - Interface
6 - Application
5 - DNS
4 - session Sessions can be hijacked
3 - Network Congestion happens, but it's really the least of your
problems. There route loops, clueless gated setups, etc.
2 - Data Link ARP cache problems, wrong MAC address for routers
1 - Physical Cabling problems (including cats, dogs, ferrets, squirrels)
0 - Power Inc. fuel delivery, ventilation, cooling
-1 - Backhoe 9/11 was an extreme variation of this
There's little chance for redundancy here
Look for "How Systems Really Work And Why They Fail." It's an older
book (pre-Internet-ish), but a good one.
Be sure to check out the Realtime Backhoe List <http://zgp.org/rbhl/>
Rumor & Innuendo (No names, please)