A few of us are attending Internet2 Joint Techs in Indianapolis. It’s a sort of conference for networking (the personal kind) between the Internet2 community. I haven’t been to one since ABQ in 2006. It was really useful and actually introduced me to a few new tools. I’m hoping this one is just as useful.
I doubt I’ll post a whole lot unless there is something really interesting in one of the workshops or presentations.
A drake showed up on Josh’s whiteboard today. I had a fun time drawing him!
Fun training on gear that will do some really high speed networking.
Updated picture of my desk at work.
After a bit of cleaning and organizing I decided to take a quick snapshot.
Mostly for my own documentation purposes. This is how you do the math to calculate database sizes when you change the steps to something other than the default in smokeping.
#########################
*** Database ***
step = 30
pings = 20
# consfn mrhb steps total
AVERAGE 0.5 1 20160 #7-day worth 30-second avg
AVERAGE 0.5 10 8640 #30-day worth 5-minute avg
AVERAGE 0.5 30 38400 #400-day worth 15-minute avg
MIN 0.5 10 8640
MAX 0.5 10 8640
MIN 0.5 30 38400
MAX 0.5 30 38400
#########################
Math here:
step x #ofSteps x Y = length of database in seconds
(#ofSteps is a multiple of your step adding up to how granular you want
your data to be. In my case 30s=1, 2m=4, 5m=10, etc)
To calculate for 7 days worth of 30 second averages:
30 x 1 x Y = 7days x 24h/day x 60m/hour x 60s/min
(translated to)
30 x 1 x Y = 7 x 24 x 60 x 60
(30 x Y = 604800) or (Y = 604800/30) or 20160
I’ve been using smokeping for various reasons all over campus and the ICCN lately.
I find it excellent for what I want it to do. I do however, find it a pain to set up.
It seems the author merely tarred up a directory and posts it to the website. Thus, users have to edit each and every script/cgi to reflect the actual locations of libraries and binaries on their system.
This isn’t hard, its just annoying.
Anyway, what isn’t included is an init script for RedHat or CentOS, so I wrote one.
Of course, you’ll have to edit it to reflect where your actual binaries are.
#!/bin/bash
#
# chkconfig: - 16 84
# description: A smokeping init script for RHEL
#
# processname: smokeping
# config: /usr/local/smokeping/etc/config
# source function library
. /etc/rc.d/init.d/functions
RETVAL=0
prog="smokeping"
case "$1" in
start)
echo -n $"Starting $prog: "
daemon /usr/bin/smokeping
RETVAL=$?
[ $RETVAL -eq 0 ] && touch /var/lock/smokeping
echo
;;
stop)
echo -n $"Shutting down $prog: "
killproc smokeping
RETVAL=$?
[ $RETVAL -eq 0 ] && rm -f /var/lock/smokeping
echo
;;
restart|reload)
$0 stop
$0 start
RETVAL=$?
;;
condrestart)
if [ -f /var/lock/smokeping ]; then
$0 stop
$0 start
fi
RETVAL=$?
;;
status)
status smokeping
RETVAL=$?
;;
*)
echo $"Usage: $0 {start|stop|restart|reload|condrestart|status}"
exit 1
esac
exit $RETVAL
Five reason I should take more vacation time from work;
5. I’ve accumulated something like 54.5 days.
4. My last buddy down here just got engaged, I have no prospects, and there sure aren’t any at work.
3. While browsing through a “Red Envelope” catalog, I saw a towel with “ASN” printed on it. I thought to myself: “Why would you want your ASN printed on a towel?” (then realized it was a monogram, not an Autonomous System Number)
2. All work and no play is a pretty boring and crappy existence.
1. I considered taking the Wednesday off before Turkey Day and thought to myself: “I don’t have anything else to do, might as well go to work and get things done.” I can’t believe that I’ve gotten to the point where my hobbies are less interesting than work.
Yes, this list is in reverse order, almost implying a ‘countdown,’ but it is not.
—————————————
I put Hawk HPS brake pads on my car today. They are extremely loud. Embarrassingly loud.
I find this disturbing. Only in America do people complain about squeaky brakes. Everywhere else loud brakes are a sign of high performance.
I will no doubt get hundreds of looks as I screech my way to a stop at Red-lights and stop signs around campus and town. I just plain don’t care.
Race cars have loud brakes at low speeds, high performance cars (in other countries) have loud brakes at low speeds. Its fine.
So its been a while….since a real post anyway.
I’ve discovered what its like to be a workaholic again. I’m strangely drawn to it I think.
I wake up early every morning, I think its the summer that does it to me. I eat some breakfast and end up getting bored sitting around the apartment. I eventually just decide to go to work.
You’d think that going in early would mean that I’d leave early…you’d be wrong.
I end up working until four like I usually do, then something comes up, or I go talk to someone, or like most of the time, I’ll just be working on something and not really want to stop until its done.
Then I realize that its 630 and I’ve been at work for 11 hours. I drive home and pour a bowl of cereal and walk straight to my home office to write an email about something I remembered on the way home.
What’s all this for? Nothing really. I work for the State, so those bonus things people get in the Corporate world don’t exist here. And raises aren’t exactly stellar either. If you get a cost of living raise you’re doing spectacular.
I guess its just that I like what I’m doing. I enjoy getting the complicated stuff that no one has done before. The members of my group are so knowledgeable and experienced that sometimes I’m happy to do something that they don’t know. I certainly appreciate all of the help and advice they give me when working on projects, but as with any group of highly intelligent people, there are going to be differing opinions of the ‘correct’ way to do something. Its nice to have been largely left alone to design and implement at will these last few months.
I can only hope that everything I’ve done ends up working exactly how I planned and I don’t end up looking like a moron three years from now.
However long my tenure at the University all I can hope for is that I’m remembered as a darn good Network Engineer.
On a different note…I sat in on Vendor presentations for 10Gbps capable test gear last week. Due to state law, I can’t actually mention who we had in until the RFP process is complete. All of the vendors were great and I got the chance to really throw some packets around. I set up a test network on the ICCN that pushed packets 900km/560miles around the ring and back. We only had enough equipment on hand to ramp up to 4Gbps but it was neat seeing the network take a beating. We didn’t want to push too hard because it is pushing production traffic. On Friday we set up a software loopback on one of the wavelengths that runs to Chicago and ran an encapsulated ethernet BERT. We managed up to 10.3Billion bits per second. I was pretty stoked.
This weekend was pretty good. Family Reunion on Saturday on top of a Formula One weekend.. I was happy to see FOX picked up the French Grand Prix. The race was broadcast in HD. Unfortunately FOX had it on tape delay so I wasn’t able to use the live timing features on the website. FOX apparently has picked up the British Grand Prix as well. So yay, more HD F1. (Its still not as good as in person)
This week ought to be nicely uneventful. I have no plans for the fourth and I took vacation for Thursday and Friday. I have some golf to play and a wedding on Saturday.
I find myself yearning more and more to get into the seat of a race car. Maybe I’ll start looking at my finances and see if I can afford getting to one of those race driving schools to see if I have the skill I think I have.
Good enough post for today. I’ll try to keep this up. Not that anyone is reading anyway. :)
Sixth? Not so bad when you look at the category.
1. Stay up until 0045 working on a network problem.
2. Wake up at 0515 for no reason.
3. Get out of bed at 0600
4. Walk outside into 30F weather at 0615
5. Run a mile at 0630
6. Shower at 0700
Though potentially harmless when done individually, together they can be devastating to your awake status at work.
Antidote: “Hi, yes, I’d like a regular Mocha please” … “Thanks”
