I’ll admit it, I’m terribly disappointed in myself. I’m sick with regret actually. Truth be told I haven’t done something this stupid since, well, let’s just say that writing about it in a public forum has been strongly discouraged by my legal team.
What I am talking about you ask? I made the boneheaded mistake of telling Yan that come November 16th it would have been ONE FULL YEAR since he had last posted to his blog. A year. 365 days. 1/3 of my kid’s entire life. I’m not sure how you say slacker in Russian but I’m sure it’s spelled Y-A-N.
Anyhow, because I told him this he goes off and does something silly, like making a post. This pretty much ruins my plans for a big celebration on the 16th. On the plus side I hadn’t made any plans yet so now I don’t have to bother. But still, a year. Sheesh.
In tech news I’ve got a story about what not to do when installing and configuring Leopard Server on a shiny new Xserve. First, here’s the list of things to do.
1. Have someone other than yourself haul the unwieldy beast from the FedEx pickup point to the network room.
1a. Hide in shame when said hauling person is literally half your size.
2. Get the network admin to install the rack rails and shove the (still) unwieldy beast into the rack.
3. Have the Xserve hooked up to the remote terminal so that you can sit in relative comfort from a workstation to configure it rather than stand in a room that sounds like the deck of an aircraft carrier.
4. Install Leopard Server using the settings that you tried out on an old G5 so that you know they will work. This allows things like Active Directory integration to actually integrate.
Now, more importantly, here is a list of things not to do.
1. Tell one of the product managers that things are sufficiently stable and that they can start using the new Leopard wiki software.
2. Forget to ask the network admin if the backup client software has been installed.
3. Let the Xserve out of your sight while the network admin changes the run mode from Workgroup to Advanced.
It’s that last one that is the real punch in the gut. You see Leopard Server runs in essentially one of three modes. There’s a Simple mode which is for standalone servers. There’s Workgroup mode which lets you integrate the server with an Active Directory for authentication. (Or an Open Directory if you’re one of the ten people in the world that runs a corporate Open Directory.) Then there’s Advanced mode which is essentially what everything was like pre-Leopard. By using Workgroup mode pulling users from Active Directory is so trivial it nearly makes you want to cry. We did this initially and life was good.
The problem came where the mode got changed to Advanced which has the most curious side effect of completely hosing the Active Directory integration. Authentication errors led to application errors which led to the discovery that really ruined the day:
THERE’S NO WAY TO GO BACK TO WORKGROUP MODE FROM ADVANCED WITHOUT RE-INSTALLING THE OPERATING SYSTEM.
So when you then add a re-install to items #1 and #2 of what not to do, mixing thoroughly with a dash of profanity, it equals a kick in the head to match the punch in the gut.
The lesson here as always, to channel my inner Sports Guy, is that I’m an idiot Yan’s a slacker.
You had Amy haul the Xserve into the network room?
I offered to do it myself, twice in fact, but she would have nothing of it. She did have a cart and an elevator though so it’s not like she had to pull it up the outside of the building on a rope.
(I know, I’m on weak footing but I’m trying here.)
Network Guy? I’m no such thing. My proper title would be Windows Fan Boy