Mochabot log - CommonJS IRC channel: #commonjs on irc.freenode.net

2010-05-06:

[0:40] <kriskowal> deanlandolt Dantman, yeah, that needs to be fixed, either by permitting an alternate charset to be provided as part of the jsgi response object or parsing the header for sure
[0:40] <kriskowal> also needs to be a reasonable default. probably ascii
[1:33] <Dantman> Tch, :/ I need to find a new secondary dns host...
[1:38] <Dantman> Current one is shit... Doesn't refresh dns no matter how I poke it... Interface is crap... Now I'm being told by their system that the SSL certificate they were using (which was useless from the start because a domain wasn't being used and I had to make an exception for it to get in) is expiring and I'm supposed to renew it (and the e-mail for that is nothing but broken links)
[1:43] <Wes-> dantman: FFS do your DNS yourself, that's one thing I'll NEVER outsource. :)
[1:45] <Dantman> Entire extra servers just to host secondary dns?
[2:46] <Wes-> Dantman: can you think of anything more important than your DNS?
[2:47] <deanlandolt> Wes--: your payment to your registrar ;)
[2:48] <Wes-> deanlandolt: Well, that's part of "your DNS", at least from a management POV. :)
[2:48] <Dantman> The money I waste outsourcing server hosting with poor quality dns setups when I could outsource better quality secondary dns directly instead?
[2:48] <deanlandolt> sure enough...just being an ass :)
[2:49] <Wes-> Dantman: False economy!
[2:49] <Wes-> When your DNS is broken, /everything/ is broken
[2:49] <deanlandolt> Wes-: perhaps, but Dantman's argument is just one very small level above yours...
[2:49] <Wes-> We lost our DNS for 3 days when the airliners hit the WTC -- never again will I not control my DNS
[2:50] <deanlandolt> you could make the arguemnt that you could use alternate roots -- then you could "control" it :)
[2:50] <Dantman> Wes-, ^_^ if a airplane hit's the datacenter my server is in even more will disappear...
[2:51] <deanlandolt> i guess what i'm saying is that if you have to trust your registrar, you have to trust your root, you have to trust the intermediaries...you've got a lot of trust rolled up there...what's one more layer?
[2:52] <Dantman> Conversely, hosting your own master, and outsourcing two separate secondary dns hosts in separate datacenters means that even if any one of those datacenters gets hit by an airplane you still have dns...
[2:52] <deanlandolt> Dantman: ah but Wes- isn't suggesting you have your DNS...or all your data...in one datacenter
[2:52] <Wes-> You only need to trust the registrar so far -- and you are STUCK with the registrar. You have to trust the registrar to point to your DNS servers -- but you should rarely need to change that and when you do, you should almost never need to change more than one at a time.
[2:52] <Wes-> deanlandolt: Exactly. If you own your DNS lock stock and barrel, you can react incredibly fast and never have a wonky server screwing you
[2:52] <Dantman> Oh, changing the WHOIS records?
[2:53] <deanlandolt> to be pedantic -- yo'ure not stuck w/ the registrar (unless you're on an obscure TLD like .io) -- you're stuck with the TLD administrator though
[2:53] <Wes-> I can't count the number of times people I have troubleshot for have have had propagation issues because of lazy secondaries etc
[2:54] <Dantman> deanlandolt, ^_^ unless you get tricked by a shitty registrar
[2:54] <Wes-> Use a reputable registrar (godaddy is false economy here!) and keep your transfer records locked. HOPEFULLY that will keep your record safe.
[2:54] <deanlandolt> Dantman: there are more shitty registrars than good ones :-/
[2:55] <Dantman> Hah, ^_^ I didn't even have to mention godaddy...
[2:55] <Wes-> Tucows is pretty good IME - I deal with a Tucows reseller that is local and trusted
[2:55] <deanlandolt> i've been using namecheap for years and they've been good to me
[2:55] * Dantman thinks Redwerks deals with Tucows too
[2:55] <Wes-> Although I do pay a fair bit for my .ca domains ($50/yr, ouch)
[2:55] <deanlandolt> i've let domains laps for quite a while and they hold on to them and allow me to renew to prevent squatters from scooping them
[2:55] * Dantman personally uses DreamHost unless the tld isn't available.
[2:56] <Wes-> deanlandolt: that's SOP for Tucows too, really saved my bacon one time!
[2:56] <deanlandolt> that's a damn good SOP
[2:57] <Wes-> Dantman: Long story short, your domain is SO IMPORTANT that sacrificing any amount of service for any reasonable amount of money is a false economy that you will probably regret in the long run
[2:57] <Wes-> Well, unless of course, the domain is just hosting your grandma's blog or something
[2:58] <deanlandolt> Wes- that depends on the domain -- the vast majority of mine are so /unimportant/ that cheap === better ;)
[2:58] <deanlandolt> yeah...what you just said :)
[2:58] <Wes-> deanlandolt: OTOH, once you're set up for the 'real' ones, it's just as easy to cut/paste the config to the trivial ones. :)
[3:00] <deanlandolt> sure enough (though i'm still content to let someone else handle it -- i'm not a sysadmin and i /know/ i'd shite it up)
[3:00] <Wes-> deanlandolt: Dude, they're *text files* - how hard can it be? :)
[3:00] <Wes-> deanlandolt: On a more serious note, anybody with bind 9 problems, lemme know...
[3:01] <Wes-> (been doing this long enough that my DNS & BIND book covers version 4.2!)
[3:02] <deanlandolt> that's good to know...i watch my company's sysadmins regular fuck up our dns...it actually kind of amuses me when it doesn't actually affect me in any way :)
[3:03] <Wes-> deanlandolt: no excuse for that, IMO. Test before deploy, keep your TTL *short* and your replicas many!
[3:03] <deanlandolt> we /still/ don't have a wildcard entry -- http://dscs.com just hangs while http://www.dscs.com is fine
[3:03] <Wes-> I have been preaching the "fallacy of crap your DNS admin tells you" to CxO friends of mine for a few years
[3:03] <deanlandolt> i've been bitching about this for the two years i've been there!
[3:04] <Wes-> deanlandolt: Wild card entries are technically problematic under many circumstances and should be avoid unless unavoidable (dynamic vhosts etc)
[3:04] <Wes-> what you need is a CNAME for www.dscs.com to dscs.com
[3:04] <Wes-> CNAME - canonical name - is like a sym link
[3:05] <deanlandolt> yeah, i'm aware of CNAME -- used it quite a bit...much prefered to A records -- i usually don't have IP addresses lying around
[3:06] <Wes-> OTOH, CNAME are problematic if you're trying to set up a mail server - only MX and A records are acceptable there
[3:07] <deanlandolt> certainly -- you have bigger issues than getting an IP address if you want a mail server that can actually deliver mail
[3:07] <Wes-> deanlandolt: dscs.com is fine from a DNS POV. If it's not working right, then your webserver administrators need spanking.
[3:07] <deanlandolt> PTR records for one, but there's all that other crap that i don't understand to /kinda sorta/ prove you're not a spammer :)
[3:08] <deanlandolt> oh, well good...but yeah, it's not -- at least hasn't been for months -- but the sysadmins and webserver admins are the same people
[3:08] <Wes-> Having correct IN PTR records is helpful but not strictly necessary. Having IPs which aren't listed as dynamic on the bigger blackhole lists is much more important.
[3:09] <deanlandolt> our ISP is the university of md...
[3:09] <deanlandolt> interestingly, they /were/ blacklisted several times -- most notably by aol way back in the day...that was a huge pain in the ass during my undergrad
[3:09] <Wes-> Yeah, I figured that was edu space when I saw you were in 128/8
[3:10] <Wes-> Heh, in my university days it was AOL that was always blacklisted :D
[3:11] * Wes- sighs, wistfully waiting for October 1993
[6:18] <Dantman> *sigh* I revived my PHP coding and am back doing really strange things with it again...
[14:20] <Wes--> dantman: you should try and replace your PHP crap with server-side JS
[14:21] <Dantman> Wes--, ^_^ don't worry, in this case the only reason there is any PHP is because it's MediaWiki.

 

 

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