Older blog entries for klevin (starting at number 116)

Assembled my new computer over the weekend. The hardware survived 4 1/2 hours of a Cerberus Test Control System "newburn" run before I killed it, so I'm calling it good. Named the system "suil" (Irish for "eye"), in line w/ my other system names of "watcher" and "gargoyle". I'm thinking about getting my own domain and using a Dynamic DNS service. Problem: what to call the domain; my first choice of "acies" is already taken in .com, .org, .net and all the other "available to anyone top level domains."

Got side tracked at work w/ a quest to implement FC Abort messages through the ioctl driver. Due to various factors (single threaded ioctls, userland app doesn't know the MessageContext values, the driver is heading towards another GCA test cycle "RSN", etc), it doesn't look like this is going to happen. Have to talk to Rajesh about what impact this will have on the hbaapi libraries.

Woohoo! The two delinquent packages showed up in FedEx's computers last night and on my doorstep about 1:30 today. Assuming UPS delivers the power supply and case fans today, looks like I'll be assembling a new system tonight. Have to wait for my sister, though, as she wants to help put it together (she's never mucked about in the guts of a computer before).

I seem to have bad effects on power supply fans. The fan in my old system at home has been on its way out for some time (third time), and the PS fan on my work computer started dying today. Took the system back into one of the labs and, w/ Jason's help, replaced the fan.

Research time re: doing an interface between a CIM OM and a SNMP agent/entity.

Ok, the directory services "get all next" was indeed having byte ordering problems, and so was some code in the library that was depending on little endian order (fix the payload byte ordering messed up the other code). Rajesh committed a fix and that looks good now.

On the new computer front, more stuff arrived today. The case & cpu package should be in tomorrow, as well as the dvd drive. Problems points: the package w/ the sound card & thermal paste and the package with the video card. Both of them were shipped via FedEx on the 27th, the former from CA and the later from NJ. The CA package left the Los Angeles sort facility on the 27th and hasn't been scanned since and the NJ package arrived at the Newark sort facility on the 27th and also hasn't been scanned since. Looks like one failed to "Escape from L.A." and the other is lost in New Jersey (perhaps it annoyed a mobster and got dumped in the Meadowlands).

Vindaloo for breakfast. What a way to wake up. I do believe I have a new addiction. The others being: reading good fiction & poetry, the internet (not joking here, I get twitchy for the first couple of days that I'm w/o an internet hookup), and coffee/espresso (mmmmm, triple grande mocha w/ soy milk, mmmmm, blink, blink, giggle).

Rampaged through the hbaapi library code for Common Transport Directory Services. Thought, hmmm, maybe the endianness is goofed (would explain the "Invalid Command Code" reject). Tried doing a little endian -> big endian conversion before sending it out. Result: the 929 board hangs (either on transmit or receive, have to hook up an FC analyzer) and the command times out. Wheeeee!

Saturday/Sunday/Monday: Mostly sick.

Made more vindaloo on Sunday, as I can't taste hardly anything (the wonders of a stuffed up nose), and vindaloo has to virtue of being definately tastable despite a stuffed up nose and also clearing the sinuses at the same time. Awesome stuff. Even my mom, who doesn't like really hot food, likes vindaloo. This could have something to do w/ the variety of spices: not only chili peppers, but fresh ground black pepper and mustard seeds (among others).

Worked from home Monday, as I didn't feel like dragging my carcase into the office. E-mail, e-email, and a bit og debugging.

Tuesday: Hauled myself into the office. More email. Waiting for Rajesh to respond to a question I emailed to him on Friday.

All components for my new computer (at home) are now ordered. The last were the Maxtor Atlas 10k III drives I ordered yesterday. Those should ship today, most everything else has shipped. I'm still waiting for tracking numbers for the items I ordered from Monarch Computers (case and cpu), NewEgg (sound card, thermal paste and dvd drive) and TeACCo (dual channel U160 controller). If I don't have tracking numbers by this evening, it's going to be door banging time, as all three of them have already charged my card.

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Bit hyper in regards to the components for my new system. NewEgg already shipped the dvd drive (but didn't send a tracking number, had to check their site) and says they've got the sndcd and paste ready to go by 6PM, Monarch's sent a tracking number. The lone holdout is TeACCo, w/ the rather critical scsi controller.

Meanwhile, back at the office: Been reading the spec for FC-GS-3 Common Transport messages, as I'm sick of waiting for Rajesh to respond. As far as I can tell, the request that's going out (a Directory Services "Get All Next") is ok. However, the response is a Reject message w/ reason set to "Invalid Command Code." Don't know why, perhaps we're not logged in properly? Argh. This isn't my area. But I guess that doesn't appear to matter now, does it?

Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday: Sick.

Spent several hours Thursday trying to get Thrifty Car Rental's online res system to work. Trying to get a res for when I'm going to be up in Wash in Dec/Jan. Must have been a major rush because of the Thanksgiving holiday. The res system kept crashing w/ an ASP error. What a suprise, a Microsoft system that doesn't handle high loads well. There's a big logo at the bottom of their pages saying the online res system was done by "Perot Systems." Whee. Yet two more large corp's that've bought into MS's sales machine (i.e. the VP's where wine'd, dine'd and golf'd better by MS's sales flacks), and now have systems that can't get the job done. The only reason I stuck around was that the res system was giving me a quote of $286/wk for two weeks (plus the 18.3% car rental tax and the 11.1% concessions recovery fee that're paid on all car rentals w/in a 10-15 mile radius of SeaTac airport). That's almost half of the nearest competitor. Plus the SeaTac Thrifty has always done right by me. Finally got a confirmation number.

Friday: Still sick, but I went in to work to catch up on email and get some work done.

It's a good thing I don't celebrate the "Thanksgiving" holiday, or I'd be even more chapped at being sick over a paid holiday than I already am.

Finally verified that there is a response to the CT message that's making it back to the userland code from the ioctl driver. Now I've just got to see what it means and what else is going on.

Made chicken Vindaloo for dinner Sunday, after tracking down the necessary spices at "India Emporium" on Saturday. Grinding the various spices took ~45 minutes, due to using a small, hand crank, pepper grinder that's just not really designed for the variety of shapes, sizes and densities of the spices used. Had to run everything through once on the "coarse" setting and then again on the "fine" setting. My sister says she could smell the vindaloo cooking all the way at the end of our driveway as she was driving up. Overall, the vindaloo was a success. I'll use a bit less black pepper next time, as it tended to overwhelm the other flavours (which included dried red chiles, a head of garlic, and lots of ginger). I did a bit of poking around on the Internet and found a spice grinder from a German company called WMF that looks like it would work well. I'd like to find someplace local that carries them , first, so I can look at it in person.

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Catching up on e-mail.

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Trying to track down why the Response Payload for replies to "Common Transport" messages is always empty. The CommonTransport Send goes out, and completes with all status' set to known good values, but the payload is zippo. Chased a few wild geese, but nothing good so far.

SNMP research, specifically, the old Fibre Alliance MIB. It's in the process of getting a workover, but still informative.

PeterR is off back to COS. Louis seems a bit put out that I wasn't around for all the joy. I'm not gonna say what I'm thinking on that subject.

Email from one of the SuSE testers, difficulties because our 1.x drivers don't display the WWNN/WWPN of the adapter. Wrote a short program to get that info.

Met PeterR (from COS). PeterR seems like a smart, knowledgeable and personable person. Louis and PeterR were in a meeting all morning. Rajesh and myself got called in to the meeting after lunch. Ditched the meeting after 3 hours of discussion over issues that are really already decided, just not official. Most of it was just fluff anyway.

Walk around the building + did the Yang 24 Form a few times.

Realized the above program used an ioctl call that doesn't show up until our 2.x drivers. No way to do it w/ the 1.x drivers. Emailed the SuSE tester back w/ a way to convert the LanAddr value, that is displayed, into the WWNN and WWPN.

Not my most productive day.

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I was rather dissapointed with the meeting this afternoon, as I was hoping to be able to discuss some actual issues and get PeteR's input on how SNMP or CIM would fit in. Unfortunately, that was really only peripherally discussed. Most of the meeting consisted of Louis and PeterR talking about Louis' grand plans.