What the heck!
Misadventures of an IT worker in a technologically-impaired country
12/11/2003
Again (pissed off)
I am overloaded with work. My other projects are being delayed due to a problem I have with the PIX and NetBios broadcast. I arrived at office at 8:00, I've sent a mail to my client asking to make a test at 9:00. It is 11:30 and I've called him for the results of the test. And he says:
"I haven't had coffee yet, I'll call you in half an hour"
I haven't had coffee either, and probably won't have lunch...
"I haven't had coffee yet, I'll call you in half an hour"
I haven't had coffee either, and probably won't have lunch...
08/11/2003
Nuria, what have you done!
I've noticed that most of the hits to this page come through searches on the words "nuria.telefonica-data.net"
As I stated in a previous post the reverse resolution of private addressing is due to a shitty configuration somebody (Nuria?) made at Telefonica Data of Spain.
It is quite normal that people at Telefonica do whatever they wish to with their resources without thinking what would be the effects. In this case the effects are quite annoying going from slowing programs and connections to avoiding them to work properly.
A great movement by Telefonica, almost as good as the one Verisign did with the wildmark in DNS resolutions.
If you want to test this reverse resolution, try it over the DNS at 194.179.1.101 (artemis.ttd.net)
As I stated in a previous post the reverse resolution of private addressing is due to a shitty configuration somebody (Nuria?) made at Telefonica Data of Spain.
It is quite normal that people at Telefonica do whatever they wish to with their resources without thinking what would be the effects. In this case the effects are quite annoying going from slowing programs and connections to avoiding them to work properly.
A great movement by Telefonica, almost as good as the one Verisign did with the wildmark in DNS resolutions.
If you want to test this reverse resolution, try it over the DNS at 194.179.1.101 (artemis.ttd.net)
07/11/2003
Incoming workload
Finally IBM has given my client a solution. But the IBM technician said it was far too complicated (!) so they are going to install the NT from scratch with all its applications, users and domains.
So on monday morning I'll go over there to set up the PIX. Lets see what fails this time.
And...
I'll have to review an old project because the client wants us to make an offer about some new features. It is a project I lead two years ago, but the part involved was developed by another person that is not in the company anymore.
My mate is on holidays so I'll have some extra work and some extra travels and stuff...
Marvelous...
So on monday morning I'll go over there to set up the PIX. Lets see what fails this time.
And...
I'll have to review an old project because the client wants us to make an offer about some new features. It is a project I lead two years ago, but the part involved was developed by another person that is not in the company anymore.
My mate is on holidays so I'll have some extra work and some extra travels and stuff...
Marvelous...
06/11/2003
A jewel
My client has had a problem with his server. He commented it to me, it was a problem in the loading sequence.
I told him: I guess that the system is giving log files, you could look up on them.
He told me: The problem is that it gives many many log files, you never know where to search...
He's been working with computers for the last 30 years.
I told him: I guess that the system is giving log files, you could look up on them.
He told me: The problem is that it gives many many log files, you never know where to search...
He's been working with computers for the last 30 years.
03/11/2003
Murphy is right and treacherous
There was I.
I arrived at 10:30 of the friday to my client's. The job would start when the current processess be finished, about 12:00 or 12:30.
There was too a technician from IBM who would make the configuration changes in the AS/400 when needed.
While waiting for the moment to start, I went over my planning again. I was willling and yes, a bit nervous.
At 13:00 I got the OK from the client, and the work started. I installed the PIX and the new switches in the rack, put some labels and made a lot of rewiring. At 14:30 the physical work was almost done, but my client said that we HAD TO go to lunch, because he had ordered a special meal in a nearby restaurant and we should be on time there.
Cool.
The meal was a dish of hake, very tasty and smooth with a nice red wine from La Rioja. My client is a very nice man indeed.
At 14:30 I restarted my work, finished the wiring and begin to configure the PIX and the rest of machines involved. I had everything written down, so it wasn't a time consuming task.
At about 15:30 we started to check that everything was going fine. And it was. The office had access to the IBM server applications and to the Internet through the firewall, the VPNs were working fine, and I was very happy.
One of the changes made was the reconfiguration of the network settings of the AS/400. That was made by the IBM technician and apparently it was working fine.
But...
Being a Murphy's believer, I assume that there are things that are going to be wrong, but I am always awfully delighted about what thing is going to fail. The AS/400 has an internal NT server which uses some of the AS/400 resources (memory and disks) via a baroque way of communication using a virtual Token Ring network.
The problem was that after the network change, the NT lost TCP communication with the AS/400, and I mean TCP because aparently ICMP was working fine.
This was starting to smell bad. Then the client said that this machine always made weird things, because it could ping to the Internet, but couldn't navigate (neither make DNS resolutions, so it was something wrong with UDP too). The IBM tech tried to explain why was this happening, but failed totally. I suppose he is very aware about Lotus Domino and stuff like that (I guess), but he doesn't know what a network route is.
Glorious.
Summarizing: the IBM tech and my client started a series of tests and tries to recover communication, and everything failed. At 23:30 they decided to stop and make an interesting approach to solve the problem the next day. They were planning to make a backup of the NT disks and reinstall completely the NT system.
Yes, on saturday, they installed the NT OS just to make an IP address change.
Cool again.
The communication between the servers were restored, but they found out that they had lost all the software installed in the NT system. This was not acceptable (!) and on saturday they decided to take the procedures back. So I went there and took it back.
Now we are waiting a response from the IBM support to decide what to do and I am very tired about this subject to keep on writing about it.
But the lunch was good.
I arrived at 10:30 of the friday to my client's. The job would start when the current processess be finished, about 12:00 or 12:30.
There was too a technician from IBM who would make the configuration changes in the AS/400 when needed.
While waiting for the moment to start, I went over my planning again. I was willling and yes, a bit nervous.
At 13:00 I got the OK from the client, and the work started. I installed the PIX and the new switches in the rack, put some labels and made a lot of rewiring. At 14:30 the physical work was almost done, but my client said that we HAD TO go to lunch, because he had ordered a special meal in a nearby restaurant and we should be on time there.
Cool.
The meal was a dish of hake, very tasty and smooth with a nice red wine from La Rioja. My client is a very nice man indeed.
At 14:30 I restarted my work, finished the wiring and begin to configure the PIX and the rest of machines involved. I had everything written down, so it wasn't a time consuming task.
At about 15:30 we started to check that everything was going fine. And it was. The office had access to the IBM server applications and to the Internet through the firewall, the VPNs were working fine, and I was very happy.
One of the changes made was the reconfiguration of the network settings of the AS/400. That was made by the IBM technician and apparently it was working fine.
But...
Being a Murphy's believer, I assume that there are things that are going to be wrong, but I am always awfully delighted about what thing is going to fail. The AS/400 has an internal NT server which uses some of the AS/400 resources (memory and disks) via a baroque way of communication using a virtual Token Ring network.
The problem was that after the network change, the NT lost TCP communication with the AS/400, and I mean TCP because aparently ICMP was working fine.
This was starting to smell bad. Then the client said that this machine always made weird things, because it could ping to the Internet, but couldn't navigate (neither make DNS resolutions, so it was something wrong with UDP too). The IBM tech tried to explain why was this happening, but failed totally. I suppose he is very aware about Lotus Domino and stuff like that (I guess), but he doesn't know what a network route is.
Glorious.
Summarizing: the IBM tech and my client started a series of tests and tries to recover communication, and everything failed. At 23:30 they decided to stop and make an interesting approach to solve the problem the next day. They were planning to make a backup of the NT disks and reinstall completely the NT system.
Yes, on saturday, they installed the NT OS just to make an IP address change.
Cool again.
The communication between the servers were restored, but they found out that they had lost all the software installed in the NT system. This was not acceptable (!) and on saturday they decided to take the procedures back. So I went there and took it back.
Now we are waiting a response from the IBM support to decide what to do and I am very tired about this subject to keep on writing about it.
But the lunch was good.