Recently in Sysadmin Stuff Category
RTFM! Read the fucking manual! Most likely the single most uttered phrase among sysadmins, RTFM holds a special place in this man's heart. One of the best things about RTFM is that, while it is most commonly said to a user, it is most commonly appropriate for an admin.
Blindly do we compile software, ever disregarding the annoying little README file that comes with them all. So confident in our abilities. So sure of ourselves. So vindictive when things are not completely intuitive and simple that they go our way.
Today at work I was playing with Yaa!. I unpacked it and jumped into the newly created directory to have a look around and see what's what. What do I see first? The most novel approach to RTFM! I've ever bumped into. Enjoy!
$ ls bin CHANGELOG conf doc lib LICENSE README_NOW_OR_SUFFER
Just wanted to wish all the sysadmins out there a happy Sysadmin Day!
Everyone seems to be in such an uproar about this court decision to let people read your e-mail. Oh the tragedy, oh what a terrible invasion of privacy! How dare they?
Wait... you mean to tell me this has been going on for years? Meet carnivore, or whatever they're calling it these days. E-mail wiretapping has been around for a very, very long time, whether people want to admit it or not. Just because this is the first it's been in the news for a while doesn't mean it hasn't been happening. The FBI has been doing it for years.
Isn't this rather neat? Okay, terribly malicious, but kind of neat. Admit it! So all a cracker has to do now is get a mac or a linux / unix machine, install an SMTP server on it, configure it properly, which is, of course, improperly, and then they send an e-mail from the guy they want to attack to as many addresses as they can, and then all of the bounces hit the target. Now get four or five mail servers you can do this from in colo.
Look, a full mailbox doesn't bother a user much. But you fill the mail queue on a server, and that server becomes super slow. You can do some serious damage with this one. I'm impressed.
Administrators, double check your servers. Make sure your server can't be used to do this by accident. Because now there are people out there looking for open relays in the hopes that they're configured this way, and when they find one they'll use it.
This is why we bug you, our loyal users, to update Windows regularly and frequently. This article talks about a new variation of the Bagle virus that uses a very old trick. Some time ago there was a Microsoft vulnerability that allowed people to embed code in the body of an e-mail message. This version of Bagle exploits that vulnerability. That means that if you've been good and kept up to date with your Windows updates, you're immune. If not, go run your updates. What are you still doing on my page? Go!