Archive for December, 2005
Oi what a day - this morning I got my usual LogWatch report from the server, and noticed that login attempts on the server have dropped, I looked over the last few days again, and it seems after a recent RH update I did it slowly dwindled down, one day of maybe 50, then 2, and yesterday 0. Weary that it may be someone got in, I did the usual checks for common rootkit download locals, all clear, then of course I had to check the status of the apps in place, and when I did that I got a “OMG” moment. Praying quickly I looked over backups, then switched back to the console doing the check.
I got a note that the following apps had bad MD5 sums (thus they have been changed from the known version I should have) - needless to say I hit Google to see if anyone else had the same popup since everything else in the check came back fine, usual complaints about the internal cPanel versions of things - but that’s not odd, turns out the definations haven’t update for the md5 lists, the latest RHE update I did was newer than the definations. So it was a false positive.
But still I am seeing a major drop in attacks, while that is a good thing, still not entirely sure as to the “why” it is going on, going to talk to the upstream tonight and see if their recent network tweaks have added any IP spoofing detection, as I know 2/3 of the attacks I get come from spoofed IP’s so time will tell.
Needless to say though, I am tired today, long night that bled into morning - but prayers are appriciated as I am going to be watching this closely for a few days as I try to nail down the server is secure, upgrade some resources, tighten others - but s ofar its all good, God is Good - craziness 
I need food. *wanders off*
While I know some people do telemarketing to make a living, at the same time I just love messing with em, sure sure, they are just doing their job - but for one I don’t need a home mortage! I don’t have my own home, but tonight’s was a real winner!
The call was about satellite tv - of which I don’t have, nor need - cable TV is more than I really need, but it includes SciFi, and TBS, so I can’t complain 
But this guy was set on getting me to buy one, so it went a little something like this:
Him: Sir you have cable yes?
Me: Yes.
Him: Sir you are in luck, I can offer you satellite tv at a great low rate.
Me: I actually have satellite too, so no thanks.
Him: Who do you have DirecTV or DishNetwork?
Me: Both.
Him: No Sir, which do you have?
Me: Both, I have DirecTV and DishNetwork.
Him: Why???
Me: I REALLY like TV.
Him: How much are you paying?
Me: Nothing, 100% free.
Him: That is no possible sir! I can give you a great low rate with lots of channels!
Me: I am part of a test group for both services so I have both and 3 DVR’s so I can record a lot of TV.
Him: Oh, well that is…. Well I am sorry to of bothered you sir, but is there anyone you can refer me to who might want satellite?
Me: Not really, everyone just comes over and bums TV time here since I have 3 DVR’s we can watch what we want whenever.
Him: Oh, again sorry to bother you, have a good night.
Me: You too.
A hoot and a half My evening is now complete.
Lately I find myself wishing for easier days, less all-nighters, less having to be late to things/cancel out on things because of servers, etc. but it’s the field I am in, and until my income can support an employee or two it’s just me, and I imagine it’ll be me even after some folks are on-board, because for some this type of work is a job, for me it’s a mission.
My blessing/curse is knowledge of a lot of things, not saying I am some super genious, but I know a lot of odd things about many topics, music, art, programming, design, construction, electronics, wiring, networking, computers, yada yada yada, but one thing that has always been my first love is Music, part of the reason I’d love to have a G5 tower or iMac, so I could setup a nice audio station with my mAudio keystation, and actually get some more things down in Garageband, and a copy of Photoshop/Ilustrator CS2 to start pursing Art & Design again, but just always feels like I don’t ever have the time - but I am always hopeful, I even grabbed a copy of The Zen of CSS Design, trying to pick up a few design concept ideas.
There just seems to be some reason I am doing hosting, it’s not for the pay, lol trust me - this will be the first year that I show any level of real profit, which is nice - but it’s still not enough to entirely fund what desire for life - but the nice thing about the stability of my business as it has grown these past 5 years is that I am a more “Stable” name, people know me, they know I’ll get things fixed, they know I’ll get things done - so hopefully this next year I can get a few more big jobs and get some spare cash squared away in savings/CD/whatever, be nice to have some extra cash on hand.
I can’t complain about it all though, I am blessed, 5 servers this year, maybe 9 by next year, but already over 11 if you count client servers I work on, on a regular basis - servers are fun, stressful, and irritating have to fix logrotate & logwatch on the newest production box, some perl modules are broken - but that’s the joy but who knows, my design/art/music fun may come back in time, maybe get some cash saved up and get that iMac G5, load up iLife and go for it… time will tell. well back to it.
