Older blog entries for klevin (starting at number 120)

Bugzilla time: Mucking about w/ adding a field to the "bugs" table to track what official release the fix went into. Everything was just fine until I tried to incorporate the new field into buglist.cgi. As is usual, buglist.cgi is an incomprehensible, steaming pile of ugliness and nothing behaves the way you would think. Not much problem at all to integrate it into the query page, but buglist? Hah, forget it.

Mucking about w/ version data in Bugzilla. Happy day.

I now appear to be, unofficially, the group's research gopher. This is both good and bad. I like doing research, but it can get old after a while of nothing else. Also, that puts me in the position of being the bearer of bad news. Not a good thing around here.

Got a few requests for enhancements to Bugzilla. This could be amusing.

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Also in my "requests for help" inbox: testing and design issues w/ using the new scsi error handling in the mptscsih code, FC management app UI coding (java app written w/ IBM's VisualAge) and probably a few other things. Here I go and say that I have no clue what I'm supposed to be doing at the moment, and a zillion people volunteer to help me out w/ the matter. And none of them, to my knowledge, read this page. Heck, nobody does except me (it's a useful way to sort out and remember what it is that I'm doing). Shout into the void and listen to the roaring silence.

Other problem w/ new computer: graphics card is a Radeon 8500, but XFree86 support for the 7500/8500 boards isn't complete (i.e. no DRI). I suppose I should have checked that beforehand.

Ok. It looks like the SNMP <-> CIM interface ihas been ruled out by higherups. That leaves me doing, well, no one is quite sure yet. Time to take a look at what changes have gone into the network stack in the 2.5 kernels.

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.