Three-Letter Acronyms & Four-Letter Words

Well, ok we don't call the server 'gibson', we call him Jules.

I logged in today @ lunch and was just checking on the health of the server, memory usage etc.

I ran the 'netstat' command and saw that there was an odd ssh session up. I know what Jeremy's ssh session look like as well as I know my own ssh session information. This didn't look like either of them.

So I poked around in the logs and found that there was an ip address continually attempting to login to jules, using various usernames and passwords. Hopefully the strong password we have for the root login is strong enough.

In the meantime though I looked up how to block the IP address.

I found an entry relating to the editing of the hosts.deny file.

Quite a handy little item for manipulating security of various services on your Linux box.

I double checked my solution with our resident Linux guru here in the office, he can it an approving nod.

Anyway, I am hoping that I have not incurred the wrath of some bot army somewhere or some haxx0r who wants to fsck up our server.

Going home,

Laterz

I worked through lunch, so just a quick entry.

Today I learned that not I need more Linux hoodoo-voodoo knowledge.

I really want to use this RLIB report writer on a project at work. However, I can't get it to compile. I know it isn't the RLIB software, because lots of people are using it.

Which means it is Me, well not me personally but the stuff already installed on the server. In part, I think it is related to the MySQL 5.0 install on the box, which we had the hosting company do, and they used a RPM. I know that there are some folks out there that would SWEAR by RPMS, never want to install stuff from source. Yadda, yadda.

I have had to compile, apache, php, and mysql manually, because the RPM didn't have the options I wanted.

Now, it appears that I have a problem with a source install, because the libraries installed with the RPM aren't necessarily correct. The level of linux library, libgcc glibc and what not is definitely way above my head.

But the basic jist is, there are two functions defined in the libr-mysql.so (dynamic object I believe) that are not defined in the libgcc. I think this because all the stuff I can find when I google ' __pure_virtual ' and a variety of other things comes back with something being funked up with libgcc and the gcc compiler.

Again, stuff that is beyond me, and I am not sure I want to learn.

But fear not, I called in reinforcements. Gene Oden, more on him later. But frankly he is a one man linux army.

Time to go tour the Sprocket facility.

Laterz

Yeah, blatant Futurama reference.

So I have decided overall that this is my personal blog. I am going to have to keep some blogs for work and side project, but this one is all me.

Moving on, I was enlisted by my buddy to help them convert from Access to MySql on their enterprise database. Now, don't get me wrong I loved Access, back in the day. Before MySql was around. Because that was the Poor man's database, now it is just the ignorant man's database.

MySql is fscking easy. I mean if you consider yourself a linux user you can probably install MySql. If your a windows users, it is so, so much easier. I honestly had the database engine installed in about 10 minuts.

Now there is a trick to converting between Access and MySql. However, a good chunk of the work can be done using their Migration tool. But as I have found out it doesn't flawlessly convert. Things like default values and autoincrement fields get lost in the shuffle. So if your converting, you will need to go through the access database and make a list, check it twice and make sure that the conversion is not naughty, but nice.

I am not going to place any blame on the coder who was enlisted to modify the code from Access to MySql, cuz well he isn't the guy that wrote it originally. The original coder, i mean honestly, I never met the man, but from what I have seen as the results and from hearsay he is a fscking moron.

But Asp.Net just sucks. I don't like it. Yes, Yes it is better than the old ASP VbScript. Which I was fairly familiar with.

I AM A LAMP SNOB!

I don't necessarily say "Fsck you Micro$oft" but I definitely can be considered that as of late. I dig LAMP (Linux Apache MySql PHP). I think the bang for your buck is with Linux.

I mean sure there is more TCO (total cost of ownership) in regards to your staff having ot be more skillful with computers, but isn't that a good thing? I mean to have a staff that is more competent vs one thta just gets by with simple point and click?

I mean i started out as the latter and worked my way up into the ranks of someone who can install windows or linux. I also learned to install and admin apache and mysql.

This endevour was my first attempt at a windows based MySql install. Like I said it was really, really easy. The tweaking of the conversion from Access to MySql is something I should have paid more attention to.

Anyway, I know there are a lot of big sites that run ASP.Net but overall I have not been impressed with it as a techology. Windows based platforms seem to need more horsepower than a LAMP based platform. And there seem to be a lot more creative (and cheaper) methods for building redundant clusters.

So the cheap bastard in me loves LAMP because there is no lincensing costs. The even cheaper bastard in me loves the fact that you can use a P3-600 with 1 GB of ram and have a half decent web server.