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Admin
This smells old Netware a lot. It was possible to encapsulate TCP/IP under IPX/SPX thru some NLM (Netware Loadable Modules) on the server. The LAN could work on IPX/SPX protocol but the PING command just work on TCP/IP (there is a different command for testing IPX replies) so the ping just works when internet link is up.
In this case the TCP/IP layer just works with the link up.
But the IPX layer works anyways, if not, may be the corrupted autoexec wasnt loading the NLMs correctly on the server OR all the IPX/SPX traffic on the clients was really encapsulated TCP/IP.
Ok, sorry, it was suppoused to be funny, thats what Netware Engeneering Certification does with our minds after 16 years.
Admin
-1, Overrated.
There was in fact, TCP/IP software for DOS, and it worked.
Admin
Ah, the good old days! I remember doing the exact same thing. God that was fun.
Admin
Admin
Thank you. I will. <g>
Admin
But the table is grounded!!
Admin
If they were REALLY lucky they might be using LANtastic!
Admin
all our production server cluster (directors, app nodes, storage, database) boot up from something similiar to a livecd (i'm not sure what to call it, i didn't set it up) so that in the case of it being r00ted by a h4x0r we just reboot the machine and it's clean. so maybe the floppy was write-protected? hehehe
captcha: enterprisey
Admin
My vote is for NetBUEI.
"You have a right to do that... but you have no right to judge me. It's impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means. Horror. Horror has a face... and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies. I remember when I was with Special Forces. Seems a thousand centuries ago..."
Admin
I noticed that nobody commented on this...
If the manager trusted this guy for 10 years, then it doesn't matter how right the new guy was when he tried to correct the problem. From the manager's perspective, the old guy had it running (presumably reasonably smoothly) for 10 years. Then the new guy comes in and all of sudden there are problems.
I have a client whose business is completely dependent upon computers, but who is so computer illiterate it's scary. This person is on the trailing edge of the technology curve (mostly because the commercial software they use is supplied by vendors who are always waaaay behind the curve), and doesn't want to know any more than he has to. Granted, that's a wtf in itself, but a lot of small business owners I run into just want to concentrate on trying to run their businesses (most of which have nothing to do with, but run on, computers), they don't want to have to understand the technology that makes the computers work and talk to each other.
Example: one of my mom-and-pop clients, going back to the days of DOS, had one computer for word processing, and another for spreadsheet work. Each computer was configured to launch the appropriate program with the appropriate document via autoexec.bat. No amount of explanation could convince them that they could run two different programs from the same computer. Even though the machines have long been upgraded and fitted with XP-Pro, they STILL have each machine launching ONE program (startup-group). They even tell me that they don't want to save the money on the second box because the person doing the keyboard entry just doesn't want to understand anything more. *sighs*
Admin
+1 Insightful! (darn Slashdot ratings)
I'm all for anonymizing stories to protect the guilty, but what good is it when the result is entirely a work of fiction? If I wanted fictional WTFs I could make them up myself. I thought I was coming here for true stories of real-world WTFery, but it's getting harder and harder to figure out what those are under the layers of anonymization.
I have a suggestion, Alex: change the names, change the dates, even change the operating system if you really really have to, but don't go adding boot floppies into a nonexistent process if they weren't there in the original story. All that does is make people go "Yes, but WTF *really* happened?" And that's not the WTF we're looking for (speaking for at least me and "Real WTF Detector", that is).
Admin
You are the wind beneath my wings.
Admin
Are you absolute certain that the original post was the one you submitted?
The similarities aren't that obvious..
Admin
Hear, hear!
Admin
Maybe this was from another or Ishmael's part time's jobs.
Admin
Snoofle said: "If the manager trusted this guy for 10 years, then it doesn't matter how right the new guy was when he tried to correct the problem. From the manager's perspective, the old guy had it running (presumably reasonably smoothly) for 10 years. Then the new guy comes in and all of sudden there are problems."
... and he is so, so right. Once he gave me that answer, I knew I was in trouble. That answer is so wrong that I could think of only four explanations for it:
After doing what I could to rule out the first explanation, I was left with a lot options that predicted a bad end to this gig. Once I figured out what was actually wrong, I strongly suspected that the customer's perception would cost me the contract so I gave them demostrations of the problems I saw and detailed after-action reports.
It was not enough to overcome the perception you cite, and they ditched me.
Admin
Schwomp: "Are you absolute certain that the original post was the one you submitted?"
Yeah, Alex e-mailed me that morning. It was changed more than I would have liked, and I didn't get to preview the story, but it's undoubtedly the same one. The point of the story, that "ping doesn't work on a local network" is unchanged. The other details were superfluous anyway, except as background for the punchline. (The changes did kind of mess up the whole CSI second-guessing thing for readers, though.)
As a submitter I'm not inclined to complain... he didn't have to post it at all.
Admin
It's probably a good thing that they ditched you. If you kept the contract, they would have probably still kept talking to Ishmael and you would have to do 10 times the work that needed to be done just to convince them that Ishmael's screwed up recommendations were full of that word that rhymes with bit.
Admin
I've received a couple emails about this, so I figured I'll reply here as well.
Way back when, I would take submissions, clean up the code a bit, add a sentence or two, and post 'em. For example:
Obviously, those posts are a lot different (and, IMO, not nearly as good) as today's. Without a back-story, we'd be left with language-specific "look at this bad code" posts -- something that a good portion of the technologically-diverse (both platform and skill level) audience would feel ostracized with. Think about The Magical Mystery Report (http://thedailywtf.com/forums/thread/78463.aspx): how many readers do you think would have "gotten" how bad it is to add nested cursors inside of a table-value function within a view?
It would be nice if every submission came with a complete and certified "OK to post" back-story (like More Rube Goldberg, http://thedailywtf.com/forums/thread/73438.aspx), but they don't, nor do I expect them to given the small chance (10-15 submissions a day) of making it on the front page. So, this leaves me to fill in the back story with (what I believe to be) superfluous details that I've gleaned from other submissions and my personal experience.
Does that make it like a "based on a true story" movie? I'll let you be the judge of that. You can be rest assured that I don't alter the "core WTF" -- all I add is some back story to aide in its entertainment and understanding.
Oh, and as far as the added "Floppy in a Server" detail, it's an anecdote from a colleague of mine. He worked at a hospital when the NetWare (I believe) server died, causing a full outage of all workstations and servers. The exec script lived on a handful of bad sectors (on a boot floppy disk) and had to be rewritten from (ages old) printouts. This was, believe it or not, not even a drop in the "WTF bucket" as far as their infrastructure and how often it went down. Had I the time and resources to interview Alan (the submitter), I'm sure we would have had no trouble finding an equally offensive detail in a network engineered by Mr "Can't Ping On a Local Network."
Admin
The internet mermaid wears an Al G. Bra.
Captcha: jiggles
Admin
Or the wife deletes the worm.
Admin
Alright, I understand the motivations and constraints you are under to post an entertaining, if fabricated, story that is accessible to as many readers as possible. But you don't present the stories that way; you present them as "Here's what happened to A. Schmuck." In truth, that's not what happened to A. Schmuck at all. It is, as you said, a lot like the "based on a true story" documentaries, but you leave out the "based on a true story" disclosure, which is more than a little disingenuous. Movie producers aren't allowed to get away with that. So how about an introductory line more like this: "Here's a story I made up that could just as easily have happened to A. Schmuck, in a parallel universe."
Admin
Seems like using a printer that supports FTP would be a terrific way to solve this situation - aside from allowing the needed protocol....
CAPTCHA: stfu
Admin
At some point they got the software developer on the phone so they could remotely upgrade the server. The support guy asked "I need to reconfigure your firewall, what's the password?", at which point the phone was promptly handed to me because, again, Computer Science majors know the passwords to all the firewalls in the world. He asked his question again, I answered with "I...don't...know. I don't really work here." (more for the benefit of the person who'd handed me the phone than the person on the other end of it), and I handed the phone back. Anyways, once the information that I had no way of knowing had been exchanged, I get back on the phone with the support guy and he confirmed my suspicions: SBC had sold them static IP addresses for the server and each of the five workstations rather than just one for the router. Either that, or they really were clueless/(mis)informed enough to ask for something they didn't need, and SBC happily went along with it.
Amazingly, all of the machines used the LAN - not the internet - to communicate with each other, and they all did so using TCP/IP, too. There also wasn't a clueless IT guy to blame, but that's probably merely because they had no in-house IT guy. I do remember, though, that a few employees had the "two workstations to access two different inventory systems through two separate Windows applications at the same time (jeepers!)" setup like someone else already mentioned. Oh, and every single keyboard in that place was brown and sticky from people being careless with their coffee. Except for mine, where the 4 and right arrow keys didn't work (among others), which made writing text and HTML a lot of fun.
I hear they went bankrupt just recently. It's too bad all that unnecessary equipment and services can't be liquidated like everything else was.
Admin
Okay,
The network was probably not TCP/IP. We got that. And the prev Admin setup file shares over the internet. Wonder if he is the guy I have been sending print request to over the years. And now you know the client needs to upgrade the file server and network.
But what you and everyone else seems to have missed. YOU didn't do a good site evaluation or non at all. Depending on your service contract you could have been in the hole more than 10 hours. And you would of made a copy of the floppy or changed that method. Say what you will, but in the old dos boot sector virus days a write protected boot floppy was a good way to keep the compsec files from being corrupted. Perhaps you should think about min standards for contracted clients and working on Documentation of client sites.
I would burn that document that says reboot everything also and brain wash everyone that remembers it.
Admin
Aww, you disappoint me - I thought you were just displaying some inspired wit. After all, if this particular 'sysadmin' did want to spell out messages about Satan, isn't it far more likely he'd end up with "satin" instead?
Pete
Admin
The internet is not something you just dump something on. It is not a truck. It's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and its going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enourmous amounts of material.
Somebody sent me an internet a week ago, and I just got it last Friday.
Admin
Admins like this should be lined up and shot.