Server+ TTT - Keeping the Conversation Going

[Rick Butler]

Hello everyone!

I'm glad to have seen so many of you out there today and hope you have enjoyed the first session of the TTT series. I've opened up this thread so you all can post, ask questions, provide comment, razz me, whatever - just would love to see y'all chat it up out here! We have seven more sessions and I hope you'll be a part of 'em all!

And if you're new to CIN, welcome as well!

/r

 

[Tess Sluijter]

Sorry for missing your webcast! I'll defo play it throughout the day.

 

[Fanuel]

Hello everyone!

I'm glad to have seen so many of you out there today and hope you have enjoyed the first session of the TTT series. I've opened up this thread so you all can post, ask questions, provide comment, razz me, whatever - just would love to see y'all chat it up out here! We have seven more sessions and I hope you'll be a part of 'em all!

And if you're new to CIN, welcome as well!

/r

It was awesome, i enjoyed the discussions and looking forward to the next session tomorrow. i have to prepare myself to sleep late again, 23:30hrs Central African Time

 

[Tess Sluijter]

Little feedback on slide 23, with regards to the amounts of disks for specific RAID levels...

The amounts you quote are minimum amounts of disks for each level. A mirror requires two or more drives. RAID6 requires four or more drives. Its entirely possible to make a three or four disk mirror, thus upping resilience, but it's a waste of space However, a ten disk RAID6 is real nice because you have increased resilience, while piling on storage space.

I always love playing with Synology's graphical space calculation tool to demonstrate these concepts -> https://www.synology.com/en-global/support/RAID_calculator?hdds=2 TB|2 TB|2 TB|2 TB|2 TB|2 TB|2 TB

===

Also regarding the OS-disk question, where someone asked whether you put the OS on RAID0 or 5.

I'd either say: RAID1 or no RAID at all... In most cases my big iron isn't even running its OS from a disk, it boots VMWare ESXi from an SD card. But in the case that the iron itself runs an OS of its own, we usually put it on RAID1 so we have one fail-safe disk should we have a failure. Meaning: we don't have to run out at night and breathe life into a PROD server again.

Remember, OS disks can be pretty darn small... You don't even need >20GB to run most server OSes decently. But where will you find small disks like those these days?

 

[Andrew H]

One of the items I mentioned in the chat that we didn't discuss (probably because it is not on the Server+ exam) is the green versus blue fiber connectors. Using the wrong one will lead to light loss and degraded performance. It is what the ISP likes to blame all your issues on too.

I was today years old when I learned they have names and not just colors: ultra physical contact (UPC) and angled physical contact (APC) -

101 Series: What is an APC Connector and How Do I Test It?

The singlemode fiber connectors you likely encounter the most feature a blue connector body, but if you’re working with any passive optical networks (PONs), carrier networks or large cloud/colo or hyperscale data centers, you may encounter singlemode fiber connectors with a green connector body...

www.flukenetworks.com

 

[Andrew H]

Remember, OS disks can be pretty darn small... You don't even need >20GB to run most server OSes decently. But where will you find small disks like those these days?

For non-Windows machines, I would agree 100%. For Windows, unless you are using a static image with no plans to use Windows Updates, even Microsoft's recommended size since the May 2019 update is 32 GB (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-10-specifications), I was going to say 40GB, but found the 32GB when I was trying to validate my thoughts. You would also need to turn off or relocate the paging file to another drive too.

 

[Andrew H]

As I think back to the presentation of RAID and how it is clumped together with SANs, NAS, and DAS I am thinking it is probably important to have discussions with students on WHERE to RAID. You can create a logical RAID for your Operating System from virtual disks created from your LUN, but that does not mean it is going to do what RAID was designed for. Currently, I make sure that I discuss the possible implications of thin provisioning on both your SAN and the Hypervisor. I assume that CompTIA Data+ will cover those things more in depth.

 

[Cyber Russ]

Hello everyone!

I'm glad to have seen so many of you out there today and hope you have enjoyed the first session of the TTT series. I've opened up this thread so you all can post, ask questions, provide comment, razz me, whatever - just would love to see y'all chat it up out here! We have seven more sessions and I hope you'll be a part of 'em all!

And if you're new to CIN, welcome as well!

/r

Rick, great first day! Will Server+ be a life cert compared to 004?

 

[Stephen Schneiter]

So, in the session yesterday we were having a side conversation about Microsoft vs Linux servers on the Internet/Cloud. Here is a good read that I thought was interesting touting some Linux numbers.

111+ Linux Statistics and Facts—Linux Rockс Hard in 2023

Tech world loves Linux and so does Hollywood: 90% of CGI exist thanks to Linux. Learn all about it in 2023 with our 111+ Linux statistics.

hostingtribunal.com

 

[Tess Sluijter]

Remind me to make a similar thread when I teach Pentest+ in October. This whole thing is gold

 

[Lee McWhorter]

Yeah, this is a good idea Rick! Like Tess, I may have to 'borrow' it for the CASP+ TTT.

 

[Rick Butler]

Rick, great first day! Will Server+ be a life cert compared to 004?

Hey Russ: Thanks for that. I do believe that Server+ is a GFL cert and not part of the CE program, although I think acquiring it might help, at least, with those that are working to keep their CE going.

So, in the session yesterday we were having a side conversation about Microsoft vs Linux servers on the Internet/Cloud. Here is a good read that I thought was interesting touting some Linux numbers.

111+ Linux Statistics and Facts—Linux Rockс Hard in 2023

Tech world loves Linux and so does Hollywood: 90% of CGI exist thanks to Linux. Learn all about it in 2023 with our 111+ Linux statistics.

hostingtribunal.com

Hey Stephen: Despite "Windows Datacenter", Microsoft can never really get into that big computer market, much the same way as it lost out in the mobility market (does anyone have a Windozefone these days??).

A project I have rolling, which I'll hare on the TTT next week, is a five-node cluster. And when I went looking for build-your-own-server-cluster on the Googlez, Microsoft wasn't even a consideration. I keep thinking that once Bioware, Blizzard, EA, and other game manufacturers create games that run natively on Linux, gamers are gonna start dumping MSFT. In fact, it's one of the few reasons why I still do MSFT on anything that I own.

Remind me to make a similar thread when I teach Pentest+ in October. This whole thing is gold

Hey Tess: I totally agree. Tying the TTT back to the CIN boards allows the students to chat with their humble, yet overcaffeinated instructor, ask questions, or just razz - all of which works for me. And as much as my prideful inner-contrarian wants to tell me, I don't know everything about servers. That's why we're a network of instructors...or something like that.

/r

 

[Rick Butler]

Little feedback on slide 23, with regards to the amounts of disks for specific RAID levels...

The amounts you quote are minimum amounts of disks for each level. A mirror requires two or more drives. RAID6 requires four or more drives. Its entirely possible to make a three or four disk mirror, thus upping resilience, but it's a waste of space However, a ten disk RAID6 is real nice because you have increased resilience, while piling on storage space.

You're right...those numbers are the minimums. I didn't bring that out clearly, but you're right - "or more" can apply at all RAID levels.

Also regarding the OS-disk question, where someone asked whether you put the OS on RAID0 or 5.

I'd either say: RAID1 or no RAID at all... In most cases my big iron isn't even running its OS from a disk, it boots VMWare ESXi from an SD card. But in the case that the iron itself runs an OS of its own, we usually put it on RAID1 so we have one fail-safe disk should we have a failure. Meaning: we don't have to run out at night and breathe life into a PROD server again.

I've built my servers with RAID 1's carrying the OS for years. As long as we account for the space that we'll need at the five and ten year marks as best as we can, the server will stay up and going.

Remember, OS disks can be pretty darn small... You don't even need >20GB to run most server OSes decently. But where will you find small disks like those these days?

So I recovered a couple servers here last year, both had 40GB C: drives. I had to regularly flush them out, particularly when I started hearing, "I can't print" ... because the OS Drive was so full that the server couldn't even write the print job to the queue.

I think the real challenge is all that caching of OS and patch files that Windows does. Add in loading up applications that need to be present and in a lot of cases, the server gets bloated.

/r

 

[Rick Butler]

One of the items I mentioned in the chat that we didn't discuss (probably because it is not on the Server+ exam) is the green versus blue fiber connectors. Using the wrong one will lead to light loss and degraded performance. It is what the ISP likes to blame all your issues on too.

I was today years old when I learned they have names and not just colors: ultra physical contact (UPC) and angled physical contact (APC) -

101 Series: What is an APC Connector and How Do I Test It?

The singlemode fiber connectors you likely encounter the most feature a blue connector body, but if you’re working with any passive optical networks (PONs), carrier networks or large cloud/colo or hyperscale data centers, you may encounter singlemode fiber connectors with a green connector body...

www.flukenetworks.com

Good information ! Fiber is a constantly changing thing. I remember cutting my teeth on fiber by making FOMC, 4-fiber connectors when doing SATCOM hookups. Hand polishing, actually having to cleave the fiber and hope you didn't crack it back into the ferrule. It's come a long way since then. I still wig out over index matching gel.

As I think back to the presentation of RAID and how it is clumped together with SANs, NAS, and DAS I am thinking it is probably important to have discussions with students on WHERE to RAID. You can create a logical RAID for your Operating System from virtual disks created from your LUN, but that does not mean it is going to do what RAID was designed for. Currently, I make sure that I discuss the possible implications of thin provisioning on both your SAN and the Hypervisor. I assume that CompTIA Data+ will cover those things more in depth.

We'll probably have deeper discussions into which storage elements are appropriate for specific jobs. Domain 1.0 is more of a scratch-the-surface overview. But I'll keep that in mind when we swing 'round again on storage.

I've personally not studied the Data+ yet. Maybe someday, I'll get there.

/r

 

[Rick Butler]

Yeah, this is a good idea Rick! Like Tess, I may have to 'borrow' it for the CASP+ TTT.

Well, I'll be in both CASP and PenTest TTT, for sure. After all, discussions like this will be the surefire way to get me to the 500 thread-count on CIN first.

(I feel like a bedsheet)

/r

 

[Lee McWhorter]

After all, discussions like this will be the surefire way to get me to the 500 thread-count on CIN first.

Lol I think you got that.

 

[Stephen Schneiter]

Will Server+ be a life cert compared to 004?

You are correct! Server+ is good for life. Now renewal. Not to say that won't change some day, but who knows. It is GFL with this version.

 

[Hod Berman]

Remind me to make a similar thread when I teach Pentest+ in October. This whole thing is gold

So cool, didn't know who was teaching it. Can't wait!

 

[Rick Butler]

I know some of you out there have asked for a copy of my lame-o, cut-rate no-cloud poster that I put up to the camera in Session 1 - well, you're more than welcome to it.

Well, you're more than welcome to it with my compliments!

Hope you all enjoyed Session 2 - have a great weekend!

/r

 

[Andrew H]

While playing Kahoot it was accidently said that port 23/tcp was SMTP -- SMTP is 25/tcp. 23/TCP is Telnet.

When not taking an exam -- https://www.iana.org/assignments/service-names-port-numbers/service-names-port-numbers.xhtml

(I just really wanted you to know someone was watching and paying attention)