I'm a bored techie! Ask me anything (tech related)

[cheezus]

[Don Claybrook]

1. BGP or MPLS?

What does the maximum-paths variable designate in an EIGRP config?

If you have a NAT statement on the inside of a PIX, what corresponding element do you need on the outside interface in order to do NAT overload on outbound traffic?

Will there be an iPod released that has a compact flash slot so that I can dump pictures onto it while vacationing?

[Blue-Jay]

2. How do I access gmail from a Mac?

goddamn macs....

[cheezus]

10. try a different browser

[Blue-Jay]

15. I've tried Safari and IE.

Does it work with Opera?

[tsakshaug]

3. at what point

do you say screw it and re-image the computer?

[cheezus]

11. depends how I'm getting paid

;)

[Squatch]

4. Why do Vulcans and Romulans look similar?

Oh...wait, you said "techie" ont "Trekkie"

[cheezus]

13. they're closely related

but the romulans embraced their emotions, while the vulcans tried to suppress theirs

[eataTREE]

5. Oh, you asked for it. Did you ever ask for it...

I am managing about a dozen Linux NFS servers. Each is a dual P3 or P4 Xeon, ranging between 1 and 3 GhZ. Each runs Fedora Core 1 and vanilla kernel 2.4.26. Each has an IBM ServerRaid HW raid card attached to one or more IBM storage expansion units. Depending on the size of the disks in the expansion units, they have between 1 and 3 TB of storage attached. The storage is set up as RAID 5. They are divided into partitons between 60 and 220GB each, all of which are formatted with ReiserFS version 3.

These servers service up to about 300 clients. Each client is only talking to at most 2 servers at a time, however there is no limit on the number of clients that might be talking to a particular server at once. The clients are running compute-intensive research applications, basically crunching large data sets off the NFS servers and writing back the results.

The problem is that performance is not what I think it ought to be. The servers, especially the slower ones, can easily be overwhelmed, especially when 64 clients are all doing write operations at once. I know writes are supposed to be more expensive than reads under RAID 5 but since it's hardware RAID I didn't think that this would make much of a difference.

The NFS settings are TCP, NFS version 3, 32K block size.

What can I do to improve server performance?

[tsakshaug]

6. question eata-

what size/type switches do you have on this network?

[eataTREE]

9. A question with a complicated answer.

The servers themselves sit on a Nortel gigabit (over copper) switch.

One group of clients sit on a number of 3Com 100BaseT switches. Each of those switches has a gigabit uplink, and they all plug into the Nortel switch.

Another group of clients are in a different part of the building. We have a fibre gigabit connection from the server room to that other machine room. Those clients themselves are server-blade-like nodes that sit on a very fast backplane to communicate with each other.

There is very little client-to-client communication. It's almost all client-to-server.

One of the reason that I'm using TCP for NFS is the fact that different parts of the network run at different speeds. I ran tests which indicated a factor-of-10 slowdown using UDP, mostly due to packet fragmentation.

[tsakshaug]

12. hoping this was an easy answer

But it isn't
amazing how fast switches improve "server" performance however, just upgraded to all gig switches

[Dora]

7. When it comes to peanut butter, do you prefer chunky or smooth?

[jdots]

16. you're busy ...... I'l take the peanut butter question

1st. of all,what kind of bread are you using ?

[NewJeffCT]

8. Slow PC question

My home PC is about 3 years old now. I've nabbed all the spyware, I think. I've run defrags, etc. It is Windows XP and had the slowness problem before I installed Service Pack 2.

Any suggestions?

[jdots]

14. I have forgotten my x over design for a Dyn D 28 tweeter

is is at your house ? Allso do you remember if we were going with 6d.b. out on the woofer with a .5 coil ? Thanks and wheres the 3 bucks you owe me ?

[BarbaRosa]

17. OK

I recently acquired a Gateway 450 -I know, I know, but it was real cheap and I got a decent printer in the deal-. I ran Spybot and AdAware, found and removed a bunch of stuff. Now when ever I boot up I get a message box saying -A required .DLL file, SFCWALL31.DLL, was not found-. From my Internets searching I think it has something to do with Net Backup Pro, Veritas. I searched the computer and found nothing relating to NBP or Veritas. Any ideas?

Part II: Running Spybot and AdAware cleans everything up except something called DSO Exploit shows up as soon as I reboot. Any ideas?

thanks for asking :hi:

[Demit]

18. can a Mac user run Windows MediaPlayer so she can watch certain

streaming video?

Just got my G5 and upgraded to DSL but not all sites employ RealPlayer or Quicktime.
Haven't been techie-minded since before OSX. Is there a simple answer?

[tsakshaug]

19. simple answer

yes

[MemphisTiger]

20. Are you Nick Burns, my companies computer guy?

[klook]

25. Uh-oh

Hope you didn't get fired, "Nick." We have a lot of questions for you!

[LaReservaPr]

21. I have a Sony Vaio laptop

and i was using it when the LCD screen just broke. The screen went blank and Ink spots appeared. How is this possible if i was using the laptop right at that moment and it had never fallen or had a hit.

[helnwhls]

22. how come it is the biggest asses in the office

who always insists that they get the new technology first, although they actually rarely use any technology at all?

[helnwhls]

23. why are the techs the only one that have to read instructions?

[klook]

24. How do I mount an old hard drive in a new machine

without erasing the old drive's contents? (Windows and/or Linux)

Drive is a Western Digital Caviar 34000 (4GB).

[Blue-Jay]

26. From the rear.