Digital Choke Daynotes

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What I Did On My Summer Vacation (July 2003)

Another weekend of extended family time, the semi-annual family reunion at the cabin in the mountains. This one was for my side of the family, and a good time was had by all.

Although not everyone could make it, we did get about two-thirds of the original family members (my brothers and sisters and their children and grandchildren). There are ten of us altogether, five of each. We range in age from 35 and above (I don't think that I am allowed to be more exact). My parents are in their middle 80's, and there are many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

We all had a good visit, and did our regular batch of activities. We have our own version of the Olympics. First off was the 'donut on the string' eating contest. Get some powdered sugar mini-donuts, and tie strings through the holes. Then suspend them from a rope so that they are at face-level when you are kneeling in front of them. The rules don't allow the use of hands. The first to finish their donut wins. And you have to whistle in order to win, which is why you use the powdered sugar donuts. It is quite entertaining to watch.

Then it's off for the cherry-seed spitting contest. And then the water balloon toss. There is much laughing and coaching from the spectators. By then it was time for lunch, then off to the swimming pool down the road.

In the evening we have a talent show from each family, although only a couple of families participated. Then we look at slides of past reunions and other family pictures. The children particularly like that, as they get to see their parents as children and adults, and all of the various fashions that were worn throughout the years.

Throughout the entire time, there is much visiting going on. There's a couple of craft projects for the children and adults, good food, kids getting unbelievably dirty, and everyone gets along.

That's how I spent Friday and Saturday. We do these reunions every two years, and all look forward to them.

Sunday was resting up day. Jason came over for dinner, and I barbequed some ribs and chicken outside in the 100+ degree heat. Pam pre-cooks both, so we just use the barbeque to burn on the sauce. It was quite tasty, with corn on the cob, hash browns, and french bread. Then a quiet evening in front of the computer and television.

I started on my first WIndows 2003 Web Server today. It was a very easy setup procedure, and only took about 40 minutes. I haven't looked at all the security settings yet; that's in tomorrow's plan. I installed it in the lab, so it is not on the production network. It is also not connected to the Internet yet, so there isn't the risk of attack. Tomorrow I'll do some security audits on the basic/default installation to see those results. I have a couple of weeks to play with it, so it will be interesting.

The servers are HP/Compaq Proliant DL360's and DL380's, rack mounted. There has been great improvements in the racks and mounting hardware. The rack and server rails just snap in place, so there are no tools required. All you need to do is use the provided template to figure out where the rails go, snap them in place (it's easier if you have a helper in back to do the back connections). Then snap the rails on the server box. You need help with lifting the servers (they are quite heavy) onto the racks, but they slip in quite easy. Then the "SmartStart" CD walks you through the entire configuration process, including the OS.

This server had a previous life as a WIndows 2000 Server, so I didn't do the SmartStart part, just booted from the Win2K3 disk.

I also spent a bit more time with the project plan. Lots of things to do, including four servers for the mail system, a DNS/DHCP server, a VPN server, and a server for Internet access to our mail system. Tomorrow, some meetings about the email retention policy and other things, so it will be busy.

There are some security warnings out there for Oracle, Windows, and Linux. Get to your nearest security page for the details. I like the weekly newsletters at www.sans.org ; sign up for them and you'll be fairly forewarned. There are also some warnings on Jerry Pournelle's Security pages.

It was one of those days where time files: you look up and it's two hours later. I had two meetings in the morning and one in the afternoon. All three were productive; their respective projects are moving along nicely.

I was able to spend a short time wandering through the Windows 2003 server, looking around at a few of the settings on there. I wasn't able to do a full evaluation on the default settings. But I did find some good security information on Microsoft's TechWeb site. There's about 400 pages of documentation I need to wander through to get more familiar with the proper security settings. But, as mentioned yesterday, the installation was quite easy.

After work, we went over to Mel's Diner for dinner with Christine and her family. They just purchased a used Windstar from Enterprise Car Rentals, so they wanted to show it off a bit. We had a nice dinner there -- nothing fancy, just good food, reasonably priced. Then we went over to Wal-Mart to pick up the new "Piglet" movie for the grandkids, who, as you might expect, are well-spoiled by their grandparents. We got a copy for their house, and one for ours (for when they visit).

Real exciting day. I did a bit of surfing tonight, and now I think that I'll work on the pictures from the reunion. Some of them need some contrast adjustment, then I'll make a slide show out of them to send to Stacy back at college. I also got a few of her cousins to write her a short note, so would like to get that and the pictures into the mail.

Regular readers (yes, both of you) might recall my efforts in blocking spam and offensive mail at work. It's not as easy as the anti-spam vendors say it is.

The weather here is starting to cool down a bit. It only got into the mid-90s (F) today. We've had 17 days of 100+ degree weather this month, which tied the local record. The advantage around here is that there is usually minimal humidity. And the evenings usually cool down nicely. The weather dweebs say that it should be a bit cooler the next couple of days. Which will be nice; tomorrow is the company picnic at the park. Free food, dunk tanks for the managers, free admission to the zoo. Christine and the grandkids will be there, so it will be a fun afternoon and evening.

One of the projects I am working on is a new Intranet server. It will host all of the internal web pages that are spread out on several servers. We decided to use Windows 2003 as the operating system. Yeah, I know that we could have used Apache/Linux, but we have standardized on Windows for our Intranet servers, which also have some specialized apps.

Anyway, I had already set up the server with the basic operating system install. I took a short peek around the system a couple of days ago, but need to get a bit more familiar with it's security settings. I got the security documentation from the Microsoft TechWeb site. It is very thorough, with separate chapters on the proper security settings for the different roles of a Win2K3 server, such as domain controller, file/print server, web server, etc. The documentation set is about 400 pages long, and has much detail to it. So I spent part of the day looking through that. The plan is to check all the settings, make a few adjustments as required, then start installing some content to see how it works.

Today was also the company picnic. We always have it at the City park next to the zoo and a kids park. It turned out to be a really nice day. We've been having a lot of hot weather lately, but today it was a bit cloudy and slightly humid, but a nice breeze kept it cool. We wandered through the zoo, which is slightly small. But they did have a white alligator there which was interesting to see. Christine and Jared (oldest daughter and her husband) brought the two grandkids, which enjoyed wandering through the zoo. The kids especially liked the reptile house, with all the snakes and lizards. The hippo was also a favorite, as were the monkeys and giraffes.

Next to the zoo is Fairytale Town, a nice old play area for the kids. There are all the things from children's storybooks, like tree houses with circular slides, Indian teepees, Cinderella's pumpkin carriage, the three pigs house (complete with three pigs), and similar things. This place has been around for enough years that I used to visit it when I was a kid (that was back in the 1950's). One of my favorites when I was a kid was the "Crooked Mile", a raised concrete winding pathway that is actually a mile long. It was always fun to run around the Crooked Mile.

Another favorite was Owl's Tree House. You climb up the stairs, and there was an old owl (since gone) in a small cage in the tree house. Then you go down the old circular metal slide. There was also a barn with cows and goats and sheep, and you would climb up to the second level of the barn to go down that slide.

If you were really lucky, you could go into King Arthur's Round Table Court to have your birthday party with your friends. You would get cake and ice cream, and maybe even a story from Mother Goose.

It is still a popular place. Although it has been around for a long time, it is well-maintained, and kids still have fun running the Crooked Mile, the Treehouse and Barn slides, and petting the Three Little Pigs. I have fond memories of the place as a kid, we brought our children there, and now we are bringing our grandchildren.

Just before lunch today, I had to deal with the new virus making the rounds. I had got an alert from a user about a strange message. When I looked at it, it was a bit suspicious: it was from the user 'admin' on our domain name. I knew that wasn't a valid user name on our network. And the address header looked spoofed.

A few minutes after getting that, I got the Network Associates AVERT warning about that virus. Since there was already an example of that viral message inside our network, I quickly banged out a message to all users. It is here for your use; you are warned:

Along with that warning, you should have heard of the RPC vulnerability in various version of the Windows operating system. Pay particular attention to the fact that applying Service Patch 4 after the RPC patch will break the RPC patch. You should always install patches in the order they were released. Here's the message:

Be aware that downloading that security tool from eEye requires registration, which will get you some marketing mail. But they do have good security products for the enterprise.

And on a similar note, the Microsoft web sites were attacked by a Denial of Service (DoS) attack today. For you conspiracy theorists, the annual "Black Hat" hacker's convention is going on in Las Vegas right now.

We woke up to a light rain this morning. Some tropical moisture is passing through, so it is a bit humid, but not too bad. It rained very lightly most of the morning, then just mostly cloudy and warm and humid the rest of the day.

Pam had to work this morning, doing end of year accounting cleanup for the company. (Did I mention that we both work for the same place? Make commuting a bit cheaper.) So I did some cleaning up around here. I started off with the tile in the master bathroom (counters and shower), then vacuumed the upstairs. Took the sheets off the bed and tossed them in the washing machine. Then had breakfast, and cleaned up the kitchen a bit.

One of the projects today was to get the VCR installed in the upstairs entertainment unit. I needed to drill some holes to get the wires from one area to another, so started with the cordless drill. The battery didn't last long, so I grabbed my old Craftsman electric drill. But the drill chuck wasn't working right, so I couldn't get the drill bit in there. I've had that drill for about 25 years, so I figured that it was time to retire it.

Craftsman tools, at least the drill I had, have a lifetime guarantee. So I took it to the local Sears, wandered up to the tools department, and told the young salesman there my sad story. He led me over to the electric drill section, and I settled on a new Craftsman drill, with a case. A few minutes at the cash register, then he handed me the receipt for the new drill. At no time did any funds of any sort change hands.

The new drill works nice; it's a bit more powerful than the old one. But it doesn't have the same 'heft' as the old one. And it also only has a one-year replacement warranty. I don't use it that much, so perhaps this one will last another 25 years.

Had a nice visit with my sister today, out from Utah. She stayed here after last week's reunion, and came up to see the new place here. I had taken a bunch of pictures at the reunion, so I copied them onto a CD for her to take home and share with her family.

Spent the evening watching "Monte Walsh", a good cowboy story set in the late 1890's, staring Tom Selleck. It was an enjoyable movie, a bit bittersweet, since it was set during the waning days of 'cowboying'. My favorite part involved the cook, and his less than perfect personal hygiene. The cowboys decided they had enough of that, so they forcibly gave him a bath. The cook got his revenge later, when he added some non-conventional ingredients to the morning's pancakes. That caused a general exodus to the small outdoor houses.

While writing this, I'm watching the tail end of "Gone to Texas" (I think) on the Hallmark channel. It's the story of Sam Houston and the events leading up to (and past) the Alamo. Pretty good show, a bunch of good actors, including Sam Elliot, who always does a good Western role.

And a final warning about the virus I told you about yesterday. This one doesn't seem to do much damage, other than mailing copies of itself. But it's technique for distribution is interesting: it is contained in a zip file, which makes it harder to block. People might be a bit less careful about zip files, and that's why it spread so fast. You know the mantra....

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