From davyd at madeley.id.au Tue Oct 11 12:53:10 2005 From: davyd at madeley.id.au (Davyd Madeley) Date: Tue, 11 Oct 2005 12:53:10 +0800 Subject: [tech] Recabling the machine room Message-ID: <20051011045310.GD31479@bridgewayconsulting.com.au> I believe we have now received all of the required cables to repatch the machine room. I propose that this is done at the beginning of the holidays (that is in 6 weeks). Since we are currently running very close to capacity for heat and current, I propose the following should also be done: - Remove Cthulhu (the Accellar) - Remove the 10Base2 network - Remove the DECTerms and dodgy old VGA monitors The monitors should be replaced by a single 15" LCD (that supports DPMS-off mode) connected to the KVM. We can talk minicom to the DECservers from one of the machines. I would like to additionally propose: - the shutdown of machines with easily miagratable tasks (ie. nayk) - the complete removal of the colo network - Removal of the DECServer from the corridor, instead patching through serial from that side of the machine room - Some attempt to consolidate the webcam machines in the machineroom together (if this is possible). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ On removal of the colo machines: The UCC is not a colocation service, nor should it be. The club does not exist to offer members free colocation. We do not make any profit off this service, instead only offering it to people who know the secret handshake. Colo boxes are commonly old and shoddy, producing a lot of heat and drawing a lot of current as well as being a liability for the club, both in bandwidth costs, as well as being unable to monitor the activities on them. There are activities, illegal or otherwise, that would cause us to violate the Aarnet terms. I am not saying these things are happening, but we have no way to ensure they are not. Additionally, many of them are running on our secure networks. Frenchie has suggested that we move them into a locked rack in the clubroom on their own vlan. I would like to propose the radical step of removing them altogether. Members with colocated hardware should either move services onto UCC machines (if appropriate), ask the UWA data centre for colocation (if appropriate) or purchase professional colocation. Alternatively, I propose we sell colocation at the special member's rate of $70/year for 2RUs of colocation (traffic costs extra). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I am going to bring all of this up with committee. However, I feel this is going to be the only way to put a cap on our heat and current consumption. We may not be paying for power, but we shouldn't just plug in every old piece of hardware we get. Remember, in the summer it is going to get hot. The University came very close to blowing its 6MW allocation last summer. Continuing to up our current draw is disrespectful to the uni and the Guild, who are kind enough to provide us with these facilities (which I remind people are a priviledge, and not a right). --d -- Davyd Madeley http://www.davyd.id.au/ 08B0 341A 0B9B 08BB 2118 C060 2EDD BB4F 5191 6CDA From trs80 at ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au Wed Oct 12 22:20:04 2005 From: trs80 at ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au (James Andrewartha) Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2005 22:20:04 +0800 (WST) Subject: [tech] morwong's /usr/local stuff Message-ID: I was upgrading morwong's rpm-managed free software tonight (don't ask) and didn't think about the fact it was installing into /usr/local and clobbering things like the local zlib and gcc. I've recompiled ssh, but there's probably a whole bunch of other things broken. On the plus side, you can now run /usr/local/src/tachometer and get a shit version of {sun,sgi}freeware. -- # TRS-80 trs80(a)ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au #/ "Otherwise Bub here will do \ # UCC Wheel Member http://trs80.ucc.asn.au/ #| what squirrels do best | [ "There's nobody getting rich writing ]| -- Collect and hide your | [ software that I know of" -- Bill Gates, 1980 ]\ nuts." -- Acid Reflux #231 /