Rants

Posts in which I fly off the handle.

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

Hi, I’m OS X Server, Leopard Edition! Let’s Waste Some Money Together!

Normal (non-nerdly) updates will resume tomorrow. I just kind of had to get this off my chest.

Let’s start with these two screen grabs:

This is a graph of my company’s weekly bandwidth usage. The blue lines represent the data we downloaded from the outside world. The green lines are the data we sent out to the IntarWeb Planet.

And another one:

This is zoomed in view of the “hourly” usage.

What do we see here kidlets? We see TREMENDOUS spikes occurring at regular intervals and then stopping.

What do we think is causing all this data transfer? What pray tell, are we downloading off the Internet? Have we suddenly developed a taste for P2P file sharing? Are we downloading every movie there is from the iTunes Store? Is someone at my work a voracious pr0n hound?

Nope.

That is one of my Xserves, screwing me with my pants on.

Yes, I am quite annoyed.

The problem lies in Leopard Server’s Software Update service. (10.5.1, even) This is a neat little thing where the Server downloads all software updates from Apple and then distributes them locally to all the computers in the studio. It’s lovely for a couple reasons. One, it saves on bandwidth costs, since machines can just go to MY server instead of Apple’s servers to get 10.5.1, updates to iLife 08, etc. Yes, a 150 MB OS X update isn’t that big a deal, but multiply that out by 20 machines and it’s a whole lot of usage. Two, it’s way faster to get updates locally than to have to truck all the way to Apple’s servers.

So I use this little function quite a bit. It’s very handy.

Except that it’s horribly, horribly broken in 10.5.1.

First off, upgrading from 10.4.11 ruined the Software Update setup. When I tried to turn that on, I’d get an error. Unfortunately by the time I started digging around I already knew that I’d be re-installing the whole she-bang (because Open Directory/Kerberos hates me, but that’s a whole ‘nother story I won’t go into now). So I didn’t make a note of the error. But as I recall, it has something to do with a .bundle not being updated properly. So the fancy new Leopard stuff is trying to use a creaky old Tiger .bundle Theoretically, you could extract the new Software Update .bundle off the Leopard Server Install DVD and plop it into the proper location, after making sure all the permissions were correct.

Yeah, a big freaking chore and one you might not get right. If you have upgraded to 10.5 and things aren’t working right, plan on re-installing. Or praying that the 10.5.2 update fixes all this crap.

Second thing with Software Update, which relates to the graphs above:

After the clean re-install, I got it to work fine and I went about setting up all ten of our new Mac Pros. (And upgrading three or four other machines to Leopard). All is right with the world, except that I was sleep deprived.

But then!

Sunday morning at about 1 AM, the Mac I was setting up could no longer reach my update server and the Software Updaters on the other Macs were spewing “can’t find index.sucatalog at server_name” and no updates were going out.

“Hrrrrm,” I said sleepily, “That’s odd. I haven’t changed anything on the server. Why isn’t it working?”

I stopped and started the Software Update service and there was No Joy in Jonville.

Fine.

Reboot the server.

Nope. Still not working. Same error, they can’t find the file they need on the server. Let’s look at log files! Whee! In the Software Update Error Log we find:

[Mon Feb 4 01:55:34 2008] [error] [client 192.168.0.51] File does not exist: /usr/share/swupd/html/index.sucatalog

OK, let’s SSH into the box and see what’s there. Where is the index.sucatalog file? Maybe I can just manually find the little bugger and put it where it’s supposed to go. Or I can just change the config of the Software Update process to the right location.

Turns out that index.sucatalog is merely a symbolic link and the real catalog file is here:

/usr/share/swupd/html/content/catalogs/index.sucatalog

Fine.

Except.

When I dig down in the “content” directory, guess what I do not find? If you guessed “a directory named ‘content’,” you win a cookie. There’s a directory called “downloads” and in there is where all 18GB of Apple Software updates can be found, but no “content” directory. Which is how the Software Update service does its mojo. It keeps track of everything on Apple’s servers and itself and syncs between the two.

See? No “content” directory.

It’s royally hosed.

But the thing that is flummoxing to me is that not only is the service hosed from the outside and my Macs can’t get their updates (even though I did NOTHING), but it’s fried internally as well. Because it just keeps downloading the individual software update packages OVER and OVER and OVER again. It would start in the middle of the night, go for 7 hours and then just stop. And then later in the day it would start up again, completely saturating our 7MBit connection. All told, it download about 70 GBs worth of crap.

Our “normal” bandwidth usage in a MONTH is around 55 GBs. We only pay for 75 and everything over that is $MONEY.

So this clever little custom apache process called “Software Update” that is supposed to save me money on bandwidth? Will end up costing us a grundle.

I hope the irony is not lost on you.

I called Apple Enterprise Support (We have Premium support for servers). This is the gist of the conversation:

Me: YOU ARE KILLING ME.

Apple Enterprise Support Droid: Yes sir, we know about this issue.

Me: For the love Pete on a popsicle stick, when are you fixing it? Can it please be VERY SOON? I’m feeling very fragile over here. I’m not well.

Apple Enterprise Support Droid: We are very sorry about it. A fix is coming very soon.

Me: OK, let me know, please. I’ll be the geek in the corner, weeping quietly into his caffeinated beverage.

Here’s the hack/fix/workaround:

1. Make sure the Software Update service is off in Server Admin.

2. ssh into the server and remove ALL the directories BELOW /usr/share/swupd/html/ (Yes, any updates you have already downloaded will be nuked.) BE CAREFUL while slinging around the rm command, OK?!

3. Restart the server.

4. Start up the Software Update service.

5. The service should auto-magically re-make the index.sucatalog file and all the appropriate linkages. Log back into the box and see if it did.

6. Go away for a while and go outside. Talk to human beings for a bit. When you come back, see if the updates are making their way down to your server again. Note for the 800th time that though the Software Update service is pretty ginchy and useful, it would be EVEN nicer if there were some way to gauge how long the downloads will take. Progress Bars. LET ME SHOW THEM TO YOU.

7. Profit!

Tune in tomorrow, because I’ll be back to “regular programing” with a story about how my oldest son is either a genius or criminal mastermind in embryo! Whee!

Friday, February 23, 2007

Dear Microsoft

Gotta say this right up front:

Microsoft, I loathe you.

Apparently my site looks like ass in IE 7. If you are visiting my site using IE 7… I apologize and am so sorry. I’ll fix it this weekend. There is a whole little world/column o’ stuff over on the left side of the page that you can’t see. Again, my apologies and now I’d like to get back to ranting. Thx!

OK, look I’m humble enough to realize that my layout might suck and it actually may be my CSS coding problem and have nothing to do with the way IE interprets the code. Could be. I’ve been wrong plenty of times in my life. Just ask the kids about the time with the mangoes and the chocolate pasta. Plus, I know that I can be dense and not figure things out properly the first time. Or even the fifth.

But I’m also pretty sure that my CSS is vanilla and not awe inspiring or really even all that tricky. Three columns, header and footer. Nothing really goofy about it. There is an IE 6 “fix” in there, so who knows… And I can see from the apache logs that the stuff that is supposed to load over there on the left is loading from the server, but IE 7 ain’t rendering it. It’s also there when one does a “View Source” on the page.

I’m also sure that these Microsoft people are the same people who broke the box model way back with IE 5.5 and thus begat the IE 5 “box model” hack.

Now I’m all sweaty and grunting and bugged.

And I had a really funny story to tell, too. It was all about me and the time I almost got killed by a West Valley City, UT cop. An Arby’s sandwich figures prominently in the story so you know it will be good. But I can’t get to “the funny place” right now.

This is me, rolling my eyes, knowing that I have zero time to screw around with this crap right now. Or tomorrow.

grumble. grumble. grumble.

Monday, September 25, 2006

Site Update

Welcome to the New Look™ of this place.

If you don’t like it: I don’t care. (You aren’t the first.)

If you think the fonts are weird looking: I don’t care. (It’s the web, kids, not like I have a whole RANGE of type styles to choose from.)

If you wish I hadn’t changed anything: I don’t care. (I hated the old look, OK? It was essentially a standard template. It was icky.)

If you wish that your favorite TV show hadn’t been cancelled: I don’t care. (And I was sad as well when they cancelled Melrose Place.)

If you think it’s too minimalistic: I don’t care. (It loads fast, is light weight, mostly standards compliant and uses white space fairly effectively.)

If you think the new logo is facile and boring and stupid: I don’t care. (And since when did my Mom start using the word “facile?")

If you want me to go away and never waste any more electrons on this site: Caring? Not so much. (But you’d think my own family would be more supportive.)

(OK, none of that is true! Please let me know what you think!)

(And please love me!)

(I care! I really do!)

(Have a nice day.)

(and please come back soon!)

(I love you, too!)

(I know I don’t say it enough, but you know that I care deeply about you, right? *You* are my favorite reader! All the others meant *nothing* to me! I swear!)

That’s it… I’m changing it back. Or hiring someone.

Thursday, August 03, 2006

Three Headed Dum Dum

Kerberos on OS X Server is way ginchy and cool when it works, but when it doesn’t, it’s a huge pain in the patooty.

Kerberos is Greek for the three headed dog that guards the Gate of Hell. In the geek world, it’s a set of standards (from the really clever folks at MIT, for encrypting and storing data, especially user info and passwords. Works like magic. Except when it doesn’t. Then the big dawg just rolls over kicks it’s little chihuahua feet in the air, all three tongues hanging out and it plays dead.

I was going to go off on a whole tirade, but now I’m just fed up and going to go to bed.

Friday, July 28, 2006

I Mean, Really…

OK, Apple, I swear if you don’t morph QuickTime Pro into just plain ol’ QuickTime and make its features a part of the basic OS out of the box, why, I’m gonna....

I don’t know what I’m gonna do. But I sure am going to be annoyed by it.

Here’s my deal (and I’m going to stay in the Mac Universe for the time being)

You buy a Mac. It’s lovely. Sleek, svelte and all kinds of other “good-ly” adjectives. Even if it’s “just” a laptop (laptops all kind of look the same to me, sacrilege, I know), it’s a mighty pretty thing sitting on your desk/lap/tentacles/paws. You fire the bad boy up and even the registration and set up screens are kind of nice. (Am I the only one who digs the music for Tiger’s set up?)

Minor nit pick: Apple, my friends, you could also calm down on trying to push .Mac down my throat as well. This is a minor thing, really, but when I say, “No, I don’t want .Mac right now” I didn’t make a mistake and I really did mean that. “No means NO” and is not an invitation to ask me again.

Anyway, you use the thing for a bit and everything goes swimmingly and then you go to watch a movie trailer or try and re-save out a video file.

Yes, there it is. You want to watch the full screen vid, but you are thwarted because in order to watch full screen QuickTime, you must shell out $29.95 for a QuickTime Pro license. Worse, the program bugs you EVERY TIME you fire up the Player with its little software hand stuck out, begging you to upgrade to Pro.

This is the kind of thing that happens all the time in the Windows world, mind you. I bought Reha a Dell laptop (don’t look at me like that!) and WordPerfect (just the word processor, mind you) and it wants someone to fork over cash for the whole Suite upgrade EVERY TIME you open the program. I could also point to a half dozen other Windows apps that do the same thing. Quicken, for example. Ugh, don’t get me started on how much I loathe Quicken for Windows. Plus, think about all the insane CRAP software that comes on your average PC and you’ll get where I’m coming from. Half of it seems to be crippleware or ads for AOL.

My thing is this. You bought a Mac. You paid a bit extra for it already. Some may say A LOT extra, but these people are dumb, so I ignore them. The price difference borders on negligible to me once you throw in iLife, easy of use, the machine “just working,” no virii (for now) and all that jazz, etc. But granted, you did probably pay a bit more for the gleaming box you have your appendages wrapped around.

SO APPLE, DON’T ASK FOR THIRTY MORE DOLLARS FOR SOMETHING THAT SHOULD BE BUILT INTO THE OS!

Whew! Do I feel better now!

Now it’s a debatable point as to whether QT Pro’s capabilities are such that they are a “value-added” proposition. I think they are and I go ahead and pay for the capabilities and not at all because I like to watch movie trailers full screen. (I don’t really). I think Apple has for the past few years tried to make themselves into a “it’s your media, do what you want with it” type of company. Pimping iMovie, iDVD, GarageBand and iTunes are obvious steps in that direction. And it works. People do stuff in iMovie and parents make DVDs for grandparents. My kids use GarageBand to practice the piano. But in order to really “do stuff” you end up needing QT Pro. It’s massively useful on that front and you really can’t do anything even “semi-pro” without QT Pro. And we’ve already drunk the Kool-Aid, my fruity friends, we’ll be buying sleek, svelte and sexy hardware forever as long as we still have the use of our tentacles to whip out our credit cards at the nearest Apple Store.

So just bite the bullet and include it on every Mac.

Please.

Until then, know that I bought the thing a while ago and I’m still bugged.

And on the Windows front, go ahead and bug them all you want for $30 donations. Seems to me that they are used to it. Plus, putting QT Pro into the OS would be one more thing to differentiate better the Mac platform from Windows. A license for QT Pro in every pot! Unless you were dumb, thought you’d save some cash and bought a Windows box. You have to pay $30 in order to be able to watch the full screen trailer for Mission Impossible III.

And see:

Happy now?

Grumble. Grumble. Grumble.

Favorite Entries

If you are new around here, the following entries have been reasonably well received. You might want to peruse these.

• Jon’s Report Card circa… A Long Time Ago
• Dear Gratuitously Naked Conversationalist at the Gym:
• A Peek Inside the Writer’s Guild and Producers’ Negotiations
• We Regret the Error
• What I Did There
• Hermaphrodite Administrative Assistants and Receptionists Need Not Apply
• Giving Me an IM Account Was Obviously a Huge Mistake
• Official Ransom Note Typography Vista vs. Mac OS X Shootout
• I Need a Real Hobby
• Beat Down
• Big Fat Lies
• True Love
• Now MY Ovaries Hurt
• Don’t Get Her Started
• Disturbing Trend
• Had to do it
• Mooshy stuff
• Ransom Note Typography End User License Agreement “EULA”
• Diva-licious!
• Just so we’re clear
• PETA may have a point

Holy Crap! Look at all this STUFF down here. It's awesome!

 

Really, I'm glad you made it down here. Almost no one ever comes down here. I'm like in a freaking dungeon down here. I get lonely. But not you. YOU made it all the way to the end of the page. For this I think I've a little crush on you. I don't know, is "love" to strong a word to use in this situation? Well, if it's not "love," then it's very strong "like." I'm totally in like with you for coming down here. You are awesome. Please love me back! I know, I know, I shouldn't be all needy, it's not attractive at all, but you don't know how it is to be stuck down here. Who scrolls all the way to the end of a page anymore these days? Anyway, thanks for shedding some light down here in the depths. I appreciate it. Shoot me an email and I'll send you a dollar, OK?

©2005-2008 Jon B. Deal All Rights Reserved. I'm not kidding around here, I know people who know other people who would be willing to beat you up or similarly infringe on your rights, should you happen to infringe on my rights.