ChrisB

Afternoon Folks,

Was it just me having problems accessing the BBS over the past couple of days? I tried 4 ISPs - on one I managed to get the Forum index, but no more.

Did it come back up this morning?

I've been speaking to a friend this morning who is on a Y2K support team somewhere down South (of Birmingham!).

They are backing up one of the companies which looks after the ATM (aka Cash Point) network and the Credit Card terminals (PDQs) in the shops.

Apparently, the network is on it's knee's. They are already having problems. His advice was to get some cash quick - don't bet on the Governments advice that the cash points will be working or using cash-back at Tesco's (or where-ever you go). Also, gas up the car too.

Cheers,
Chris.
aka The Y2K Doomsday Merchant

Now, where's the tent, candle and tin of beans.....

[This message has been edited by ChrisB (edited 29-12-1999).]

johnfelstead

Yes, i havent been able to get on for days.

I am working all over the Y2K holiday period on Y2K support, bugs are still being found now with oracle apps. This is the 2nd largest software company behind microsoft in the world, most banks use it to run thier databases.

I suggest you get a copy of your bank balance, some cash and 3 days food/water.

Have fun, the end is nigh! HaHa

Kev

Yep, I've been unable to get the bbs since xmas eave, i've tried several isp's but with no joy..

glad i'm not the only one !!
k

Aksan

Me too, but I've only been trying since 8:00 or so this morning. I finally got access around 11:00. I figured it must be something with the BB server.

Glad it's back on-line now, though.

A

ex-webby

Hello all,

<* hanging head in shame *>

Had major problems with the web server, now I have done some more digging around it looks like an upgrade to the mail server was causing GPFs!!! Also been hit by a nasty person spiking TCP ports aswell ...

Ive applied some patches to the server, and have reinstalled the mail software, all looks to be running okay now ...

Im looking at the feasability off adding another server, and mirroring the content, to provide resilliance ... This will also mirror the ScoobyMania content!

Thanks for your patience ...

regards

ScoobyNet Webmaster

Penni Whitehead

Thank gawd for that - here I spent all Christmas thinking it was me as I was posting at the time when it all crashed....
I know Paul says : 'woman and anything mechanical should be kept well apart.....' here I thought he was just about to say
'I told you so....'

Still - found the tent, baked beans - and week's supply of bottled water.

LOL
P

ChrisB

You can read a bit more about the problems with the PDQs at:

Gethin

Yep, pretty cool with Mad Max style activities....but with an army of Scoobies !!! Must hijack that Shell SUL tanker I see every day...!!

Got enough grub left from christmas to last me at least two months anyway!!

Shutting all our servers down today...checking backups etc...other than that business as usuall...

hehe

Gethin
MY97 WRX

johnfelstead

Sadly, no alcohol on new years eve. I am one of the many working to keep civilisation from the brink. Everyone else have a pint for me.

have a good one.

johnfelstead

gethin, shutting down the servers goes against all manufacturers guidlines for Y2K mate.

ICL and IBM have gone on public record to say that they expect failures from people who turn off there servers for the new year.

Think again about this, you may do more harm than good, especially if the system is normally left up 24/7

cheers
john

pat

Somewhat off topic, but John is right, *DO NOT* shut down servers that normally run 24/7... your disks may seize solid and will require a bit of percussive maintenance to get them up and running again (FWIW, the grease on the bearings dries out a bit over time, and when it cools down it becomes somewhat solid).

Also.... most machines, even brand new ones, have non-compliant RTCs. When you power back up you'll be on 01 Jan 1900, or at least for a few microseconds until the BIOS picks up the condition and advances the RTC century byte (in the case of a compliant BIOS).

My personal preference, as far as time goes, is to ignore local machine time entirely and sync to a reliable timesource using NTP; as long as the timesource and your OS is compliant, you'll have the right date and time (to within 10-100 microseconds of UTC) a few seconds after booting.

[rant mode] {where's that flame-suit? :-)}
Microsoft operating systems have no place on any server connected to the Internet. The fact that an application (mail server in this case) can bring down the OS is a testiment to shoddy design! The fact that a couple of UDP datagrams can crash a patched NT server is very worrying. The fact that Microsoft won't fix that bug is more worrying still. [And no, it wasn't me that killed the BBS]

The last time *this* machine was rebooted a power cycle was required due to a firmware crash on the CD Writer; a hardware SCSI reset didn't clear the problem :-( It had previously been up for about 100 days. Another box is about to have its CD writer replaced while still up (now over 200 days) because the writer has gone belly-up [strangely both writers are Yamaha... hmmm...] Both are UN*X boxen. Neither cost more than UKP 3k total. One's a dual Xeon, the other's an Alpha. Neither has ever crashed. 'nuff said.
[/rant mode]

As for Y2K problems, 1 Jan 2000 will be "mild" in comparison to 29 Feb 2000 :-) Oh what fun lies ahead.

Cheers,

Pat.

johnfelstead

nice one pat.

I work with unix and oracle mainly.

Nice bug in oracle, using the database default settings for NLS (national language support) which most databases do, the 29 Feb 2000 doesn't exhist. You have to make a change to ALL databases, even on the latest releases, plus change ALL client PC's that access the databases using oracle applications, to specifically specify a new date format that understands that 2000 is a leap year.

Cant wait for the real biggy in 2049, but of course someone will have fixed it by then!


Funnyist press release yet was by Janet Pavelin of ICL Y2K contingency planning team.

Quote: "Dont switch off large systems. It is possible that magnetic material in the disk drives may dislodge, causing loss of data" :Unquote

Made me laugh, sad thing is its probably true.

[This message has been edited by johnfelstead (edited 30-12-1999).]

Lee

I too am a UNIX Oracle and NT guy..

recently bought myself a copy of SuSE Linux. Put it on my laptop and home PC and so far have got my combo ethernet/modem working under PCMCIA (always fun!), X under the dodgy laptop graphics chipsets, sound under the dodgy laptop chipset AND the dodgy on-board PC chipset, scsi scanner/cd-writer etc etc etc oh Oracle 8i under linux, apache webserver etc etc etc. Oh and linux happily routes network traffic to my local LAN, LAN in bracknell (ISDN) or via dialup internet. Oh and it hasnt crashed either.
Oh and it was £24

Comparing it to my plug-n-pray experiences with win9X and the 128MB-still-isnt-enough-NT it was a welcome relief.

I'm not going to spout rubbish that its the next OS though cos it aint. The popular OS will ALWAYS be the one with the most software available on it.
Popular != Best.

pat

John,

A man with taste :-)

Anyway.... I just thought I'de bring up the 29th since it's not the most obvious (at first sight)... but interesting nevertheless :-) FWIW, the hardware in RTCs was designed to automagically increment "properly" everything apart from the year. Hence the "proper" behaviour for 28/02/00 [1900] would have been to advance to 01/03/00. Why couldn't they have cut corners on that one too and just made 1900 a leap year (it's not like the PC is going to go back in time.... oh, ZPE coherence, errr, forget I said that).

As for 2049... hmmm... which issue are you referring to? Date windowing seems to have no defined standard so the pivot could be pretty much anywhere. 2038 will be interesting for Unix bods [but by then we'll all be using at least 64 bit ints....]

Lee,

Another man with taste... :-)

I've heard some good things and some bad things about SuSE. I get the impression that Joe Bloggs the average Win9X user may struggle a bit. I've heard of people just giving up in digust... nice to see that the door swings both ways :-) [Interstingly enough, cards like the 3C562 will run Ethernet and modem at the same time under Linux but not under 'doze]

You're right about Linux not becoming the next big thing in Desktop OS technology. Pity. Personally, I believe that this is more to do with a lack of skills out there than it being inappropriate. For normal "office" use there's little, if anything, that you can't do on a Unix box you couldn't do on a 'doze box. Indeed having a corporate desktop based on Linux would be a good idea from an MIS / IS&T point of view (if it weren't for the lack of experience). Without root access it's difficult to break a Unix box!

My only Win9X box (used for playing Colin McRae Rally, of course... until I get it running under VMWare) has a Linux partition and LILO so I can fix it when it (frequently) breaks :-)

As for routing traffic.... well.... in some ways it's better than a dedicated router. My LAN is connected the the Internet via a Linux box running ipppd in dial-on-demand mode, with masquerading. Neat and tidy! No need to press any "connect" buttons... just tap in a URL on any machine and hey presto, alsmost as good as a kilostream, but a lot cheaper. Also, look out for CallNet0800 and 24-7freecall. Unmetered Internet access *now*, or BT in Q1/2 2000 :-)

Cheers,

Pat.

ChrisB

We brought a copy of Red Hat 6.1 a couple of months.

I'd comment on it if we had chance to install, but we've been running around fixing all these PC and Windows problems

The way forward for office machines is Thin Client (of some form, be it NT TSE + MetaFrame or SCO Tarantella), but that's a discussion for another BBS.

Chris.

[This message has been edited by ChrisB (edited 30-12-1999).]

James Neill

iTrader: (1)

John - I actually work for ICL, though the sales side rather than the technical side (but my background is techy).

We have a huge number of people on call over New Year. They were even going to have some sales people on call just in case

Don't know Janet - but the quote is pretty funny and like you say probably actually a lot of truth in it. That hard disk head thats been hovering microns above the platter for the last 4 years suddenly wonders what to do when all power is cut off

Also - I have to agree about turning machines off over new year (kind of a 'head in the sand' attitude). The mind boggles at the things that go wrong when 24x7 machines are switched off anyway. You pay a fortune for resilient operation and then go and switch it off because it might go wrong - kind of defeats the object.

There are going to be a lot of false positives too - like ATMs that are out of order. The fact of the matter is that they'll all probably run out of cash. Or machines that do crash and are blamed on Y2K when it was the cleaner that unplugged it, etc ...

James

Lee

>>Interstingly enough, cards like the 3C562
>>will run Ethernet and modem at the same
>>time under Linux but not under 'doze

don't know who setup your 3C562's but mine did do both..under NT and 9x. Although I have to say my laptop-life has been plagued by PCMCIA, although more to do with the sockets than the cards...


I have a tiny little bay-networks router that acts as a DCHP/DNS/WINS it picks up the isdn on demand (so no "connect" buttons as you point out) it supports 128K (thankyou v much - surfing is great!) has 2 phone sockets so I also use it for phone/modem and did I say it was tiny ?
And I only use a 10th of its features ! God knows what it must have cost my firm.

The reason I got SuSE linux was that it was certified for Oracle 8i - is that good or bad ?

Oh incidentally we are a Citrix/WTS reseller/big fan - just like a graphical mainframe

Lee

Yes true I don't know where SuSE got it "certified" - however I will say this..

after installing 8i I knocked up a quick database (shell script - dba_assistant is urgh!) everything worked apart from SQL*Plus.

Metalink was unclear - it noted problems and patches for Linux but details were thin on the ground (surprise!) and none of the patch notes mentioned the problem with SQL*Plus.

SuSe website was a boon..not only did they recognise the problem I had with SQL*Plus (missing Oracle library) they have a patch to download which includes
a) Oracle patch for missing library and patch to 8.1.5.0.1 (std and EE editions)
b) scripts for autostarting database, web listener etc
c) fix so that the intelligent agent actually works

and basically provided all the info/support that I would have expected from Oracle, not my OS supplier.

Thumbs up indeed ! My opinion is that I've chosen a good'un.


Oracle require min 128MB ram, 256 recommended..surprise surprise my 64MB home PC isnt going to win any benchmarks although it does run it and X simultaneously fine. My laptop has 128MB and is of a much better spec so I'll stream it across and see.

Pat..thumbs up to you..you said clam or similar..well pretty damn similar cos yes its a clam.
(Corporate Lan Access Module) although the case looks like a seashell !

IT - self perpetuating industry - fantastic !

pat

ChrisB,

You did well to pick up a copy of 6.1 a couple of months ago... I usually mirror RedHat's site (or the mirror at IC, it's a bit closer.... get about 200kBytes/sec sustained) a few days before they officially announce the new releases, and I could swear that is hasn't been that long... but you know what they same about time and having fun :-)

It's the first RedHat install that uses an X based front end (if you're installing from the CD, if it's an FTP / NFS install it's still text based... much prefer text based myself). Seems much better at autodetecting hardware than 6.0... now I'm just waiting for the Alpha version :-)

As for office machines and thin clients, I'm not entirely convinced. Y'see servers are pretty hard pushed as they are, bogging them down with even more work is going to get "interesting" [although, admittedly, WinFrame is quite good.... hmmmm... sounds like X :-)]

James,

Point about the ATMs well put. The thing about these systems is that (on the whole) they're very reliable. They have to be. But then you can't pick up an ATM for the cost of a PC! You pays your money etc etc. It always made me smile when I heard the story about big HP boxes "phoning home" to say they're about to get poorly, then having an engineer magically turn up on your doorstep with a replacement part for the one that was *about* to fail :-) Guess that's the sort of thing you'de "expect" from a big server; also liked the "cute" feature of being able to hot-swap CPUs on a live (big) Sun Enterprise server. Sadly I'm not too familiar with current ICL machines so can't really comment.

Lee,

The 3C562s were "setup" as part of the standard build, but they never were too happy about running modem and ethernet *simultaneously* because of the lack of support for interrupt sharing. Perhaps this has been "fixed" in a later driver. It was usually a case of having dual profiles, one for modem one for ehternet. IIRC, this was well documented. Could be wrong, of course.

Laptop battery life is usually cut down by

a) the CPU [x86 is remarkably inefficient]
b) hard discs
c) TFT / active matrix displays

I've yet to see battery life seriously impacted by PCMCIA cards. But then I try to avoid them whenever possible.

Hmmmm Bay [Nortel] Networks routers... don't get me started! [it's a long story related to Bay's apparent total lack of intelligence with respect to MIBs on their layer 3 devices]. But then I suppose I would be biased, being ex-Shiva :-) But seriously, I'm guessing you're using a Clam or similar, nice little boxes, but IIRC got IPX problems (not that you'de care for Internet use :-). I have a similar device [Shiva (funny that) AccessPort] and it would do pretty much the same. The reason that I use the Linux box is that it will do application layer masquerading also [ie change packet payload as well as headers]. The Accessport does, however, handle my analogue needs [until I fit an ISDN exchange, then the wee router may be up for sale].

As for SuSE being certified for Oracle 8i, I'de have to run that one by a friend, Mike, who works for Oracle, but I guess it's good. You do need a serious wedge of memory to run Oracle 8i though :-) But then few things are as scalable....

Trying, almost hopelessly, to get back on topic, it would appear that the mail daemon problems have been fixed [whe-hey :-)] so we'll have to keep an eye on the BBS tomorrow night... all being well, it should still be there!

The one thing I would really like, is for the BBS to remember which posts you've already read, so on a busy thread you could come back a few days later and not have to search through to find the last post you read. I mean, the BBS "remembers" the last time you visited... it would be nice if it would skip you past (or shade) posts prior to that date/time... just an idea.

Cheers,

Pat.

johnfelstead

2049 is an important date as most of the Y2K fixes from Oracle at present asume you will be inputting dates between 1950 and 2049.

Dates outside that range require explicit coding to modify the stored data by a mathematical equation. On querying the database, the formula must be used to extrapolate a sensible value back out of the stored date data.

The only info i can see on the Oracle Metalink site(for supported DBA's) states Intel based LINUX, no specific mention of SuSE LINUX, using either Oracle 8.0.5 or 8.1.5(oracle8i). Havn't used 8i yet but the memory upgrade requirements to go from Oracle7 to Oracle8 are rediculous.

P.S. I bet half the users on this BBS think were talking Latvian or something, allways amazes me how our industry keeps on coming up with new sudonymes.
The hardest thing in the world is to be in a techy meeting and ask what the hell does XYGDPOTY stand for.

johnfelstead

Just checked my bank account recent transactions using my automated phonebank service.

Aparantly i have withdrawn £50 from a cash machine on Jan 04 2000.

I didn't realise the cash machine was psychic!

Sanity

With all this talk of Linux running around I'd just like to mention that Apple (yes Apple) will soon be going Golden Master with Mac OS X (client version). I hate to say it but I reckon this will be the first real 'idiot user' UNIX based desktop operating system. Very nice it is too!! And they're even leaving the command shell in there.

Apple stock has gone ballistic recently. I'm not surprised - they're in a real resurgence right now. Good on them. They always were the greatest innovators of the PC market.

Did I mention I used to work for them?

M

pat

Back on topic, for sentence or two, there does appear to be a Y2K problem with the BBS. Not enough to close it down, BUT, has anyone else noticed the lack of the "bulbs" on the main page and that all of the folder icons are yellow (indicating no new posts) ? Then again, it could just be my browser :-)

Back on the topic of ATMs... nice one John, must go print off a mini-statement and see what mine says!

As far as Oracle 8i goes, yes, it is somewhat resource hungry and getting it and X running on a 64M machine is probably the computer equivalent to torture for the HDD....

Happy new Millennium,

Pat.

Devils Advocate

You might well be speaking Latvian given your spelling of the word "PSEUDONYMS"...

How about a spell checker in next years Christmas wish list for the BBS ??

Penni Whitehead

Well Well Well - now's there's a nice New Year Surprise.... and just 'WHERE' have you been??? ...... hmmmmmm.!!!!! GTHYB !!!
and you know who I mean....!!!!

********************************************
At least we all didn't plung into the depth of the matrix ecotoplasm to discover we've all been driving Skoda's for the last three years.......

[This message has been edited by Penni Whitehead (edited 02-01-2000).]

Coffin Dodger

PMSL

Coc-ker

iTrader: (1)

lol

RyanSTI

iTrader: (1)

lol

joekont

Now this is an old thread!!!!

micabluematt

i remember this thread well