Hello all, Was doing some upgrades on a UBR7246 (to a VXR), and I got to thinking about short sighted design considerations. I was curious if any of you had some pet peeves from a design perspective to rant about. I'll start with a couple. 1) Why did Cisco design the I/O controller on the 7246 with screws in the corner, which are very difficult to get at? And worse than that, why did they not include a cheap handle on the blank in this slot? 2) Why did Cisco not include side handles on the 12000 chassis? It's a heavy chassis, and I can imagine how many techs have thrown out their back moving that chassis around. I've got a couple others in my head from 3Com and a couple of others, but I thought I'd get the ball rolling. So, what do you think?
On Wed, 17 Sep 2003 17:43:24 CDT, Matt <acheron@qwest.net> said:
I've got a couple others in my head from 3Com and a couple of others, but I thought I'd get the ball rolling. So, what do you think?
Well.. maybe it's just still fresh in my memory and the aggravation factor is higher because of that, but... The screw for PCI slot 4 on a Mac G5 is partly blocked by another part of the chassis, so your screwdriver ends up on an angle. As a result, you have about a 4% chance of stripping the screw when it tries to go in and gets cross-threaded. (OK, a minor point, but when you're installing PCI cards in 1,100 of the beasts, 4% ends up as quite a bunch....) It's even more annoying when contrasted against the overall excellent design of the box....
Matt wrote:
Hello all,
Was doing some upgrades on a UBR7246 (to a VXR), and I got to thinking about short sighted design considerations. I was curious if any of you had some pet peeves from a design perspective to rant about. I'll start with a couple.
I've got a couple others in my head from 3Com and a couple of others, but I thought I'd get the ball rolling. So, what do you think?
Maybe they are designed that way to make the inner workings less noticeable? Pete
On Thu, 2003-09-18 at 00:43, Matt wrote:
Hello all,
Was doing some upgrades on a UBR7246 (to a VXR), and I got to thinking about short sighted design considerations. I was curious if any of you had some pet peeves from a design perspective to rant about. I'll start with a couple.
the orginal GSR blanks came without handles. They were also put in tight as ***. For days after, your fingers would have the imprints of the little screws on them. I once use my socks to protect my fingers when I was pulling them out. Frank
Frank wrote:
the orginal GSR blanks came without handles. They were also put in tight as ***. For days after, your fingers would have the imprints of the little screws on them. I once use my socks to protect my fingers when I was pulling them out.
Some Cisco gear also arrived with the flash cards hammered in, because the manufacturing people seeminly had issues getting the flash card inserted properly, effectively destroying the connectors and the card in process. Though this does not compete with airport / cargo handling forklift accomplishments. Pete
I have beef with every chasis designer that has ever left a sharp edge hidden deep inside thier "case of doom" just waiting to gash some poor IT guy in a most unpleasent manor.. also ASUS who insists on putting thier onboard sound interface at the BOTTOM of the MB when they know that the little cable you get with the cdrom is half the length of the board. you end up with an analog audio cable thats stretched tight and now in the way of all your PCI slots... /rude Ryan Dobrynski Hat-Swapping Gnome Choice Communications Like the ski resort of girls looking for husbands and husbands looking for girls, the situation is not as symmetrical as it might seem.
Frank wrote:
On Thu, 2003-09-18 at 00:43, Matt wrote:
Hello all,
Was doing some upgrades on a UBR7246 (to a VXR), and I got to thinking about short sighted design considerations. I was curious if any of you had some pet peeves from a design perspective to rant about. I'll start with a couple.
the orginal GSR blanks came without handles. They were also put in tight as ***. For days after, your fingers would have the imprints of the little screws on them. I once use my socks to protect my fingers when I was pulling them out.
Frank
You grabbed another one from that chassis I hadn't considered right away (although I do now). Yes, that was extremely annoying - I snapped a screw once on an old 5800 chassis with the same design flaw.
Cisco 4x00 frame rails are the king - bend 'em and you'll be using a chisel to open the metal chassis so you can remove the NPs. I've still got a 4000 around here somewhere that was shuffled to lab duty after I did surgery on it with a large cold chisel & mallet. Matt wrote:
Hello all,
Was doing some upgrades on a UBR7246 (to a VXR), and I got to thinking about short sighted design considerations. I was curious if any of you had some pet peeves from a design perspective to rant about. I'll start with a couple.
1) Why did Cisco design the I/O controller on the 7246 with screws in the corner, which are very difficult to get at? And worse than that, why did they not include a cheap handle on the blank in this slot?
2) Why did Cisco not include side handles on the 12000 chassis? It's a heavy chassis, and I can imagine how many techs have thrown out their back moving that chassis around.
I've got a couple others in my head from 3Com and a couple of others, but I thought I'd get the ball rolling. So, what do you think?
-- mailto:neal@lists.rauhauser.net phone:402-301-9555 "After all that I've been through, you're the only one who matters, you never left me in the dark here on my own" - Widespread Panic
Sorry, I missed the hands-down winner in my initial thinking, since it's not in my arena [hardware].. The envelope please.. Micro$loth Lookout.... {applause} Starting with "Let's invent top-posting" and moving to its virus-spreading abilities; Lookout has never met a standard, either hard [written/RFC] or not [consensus] that it could not wound/kill. Further, it damages the thinking of its users almost as well as drug dealers wares -- be that crack or this week's over-hyped anti-depress^H^H^H mood-fixer. It's the Newspeak of the current era. -- A host is a host from coast to coast.................wb8foz@nrk.com & no one will talk to a host that's close........[v].(301) 56-LINUX Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433 is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433
On Thu, 18 Sep 2003, David Lesher wrote: : Sorry, I missed the hands-down winner in my initial thinking, : since it's not in my arena [hardware].. Oh, the hardware one's easy, though. The modern PC, which does not by default come with a remote management (typically RS-232) system-level console. At least most if not all of the hardware discussed in this thread has *that*. 8-) : The envelope please.. : Micro$loth Lookout.... <METOO/> -- -- Todd Vierling <tv@duh.org> <tv@pobox.com>
1. Any device whose physical characteristics make it a likely candidate to be shelf-mounted, yet which has side ventilation ports which will be blocked by the sides of a rack shelf. 2. The BAT csu/dsu, a cheap T1 csu/dsu which used red LED's to indicate that all was well (or was it green to indicate an alarm?) 3. Routers that will accomodate high density of OCx ports but only have the bus capacity to support a fraction of them. 4. The Cleveland airport.
RJ45 connectors: Nasty fiddly things that never seem to work the first time you wire them up. (snip, curse, try again...) Chris -- Chris Horry "Don't submit to stupid rules, zerbey@wibble.co.uk Be yourself and not a fool. PGP: DSA/2B4C654E Don't accept average habits, Amateur Radio: KG4TSM Open your heart and push the limits."
2. The BAT csu/dsu, a cheap T1 csu/dsu which used red LED's to indicate that all was well (or was it green to indicate an alarm?)
As admitted by them, whatever cheap LED's they could by at Fry's on deep discount. No, I am not kidding. -- Alex Rubenstein, AR97, K2AHR, alex@nac.net, latency, Al Reuben -- -- Net Access Corporation, 800-NET-ME-36, http://www.nac.net --
*glares* Sometimes, especially on the Windows platform, its hard trying to find an email program which does what you need it to. I've tried Eudora, Netscape/Mozilla, and a few others I forget what they are named. All feel clutsy and incomplete. Outlook and its little friend Outlook Express at least work pretty consistantly. I've not had serious problems using it full time. Now, before everyone starts calling me a Microsoft supporter - I hate microsoft just as much as any other sysadmin/netadmin. But sometimes (abeit rarely), microsoft does something halfway decent. Now, if I could get K-Mail forWindows, I'd be in good shape. -------------------------- Brian Bruns The Summit Open Source Development Group Open Solutions For A Closed World / Anti-Spam Resources http://www.2mbit.com ICQ: 8077511 ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Lesher" <wb8foz@nrk.com> To: "nanog list" <nanog@merit.edu> Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2003 10:01 AM Subject: Re: Worst design decisions?
Sorry, I missed the hands-down winner in my initial thinking, since it's not in my arena [hardware]..
The envelope please..
Micro$loth Lookout....
{applause}
Starting with "Let's invent top-posting" and moving to its virus-spreading abilities; Lookout has never met a standard, either hard [written/RFC] or not [consensus] that it could not wound/kill.
Further, it damages the thinking of its users almost as well as drug dealers wares -- be that crack or this week's over-hyped anti-depress^H^H^H mood-fixer. It's the Newspeak of the current era.
-- A host is a host from coast to coast.................wb8foz@nrk.com & no one will talk to a host that's close........[v].(301) 56-LINUX Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433 is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433
My vote goes to the EMI gasket Cisco's BPX 8600 cards. The gasket was tacky enough to maintain a nice seal between cards ... enough to remove one or two adjacent cards when you pulled the card out. Special runner up nominee is whatever do-gooder decided it was a good idea to have a cell phone beep incessantly when the battery level is low. Did this person never see the final scene of the original version of "The Fly"? Mark -- [] Mark 'Doc' Rogaski | Willing to accept a lower economic "standard of [] wendigo@pobox.com | living" in return for higher quality of life. [] 1994 Suzuki GS500ER | -- David Cantrell [] 1975 Yamaha RD250B |
Speaking on Deep Background, the Press Secretary whispered:
Hello all,
Was doing some upgrades on a UBR7246 (to a VXR), and I got to thinking about short sighted design considerations. I was curious if any of you had some pet peeves from a design perspective to rant about. I'll start with a couple.
1) The slide lock on transceiver cables. 2) Intel's+IBM's "640K" wall. 3) IDE addressing standards. (We've been through the 528 MB, 2.1 GB, 4.2 GB, 8.4 GB caps.... what's next?) 2 & 3 are basically failures to look ahead far enough. We have lots of those. Some would say IPV4 is one, but I'll give them a little more credit than most.... -- A host is a host from coast to coast.................wb8foz@nrk.com & no one will talk to a host that's close........[v].(301) 56-LINUX Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433 is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433
At 08:57 AM 9/18/2003, David Lesher wrote:
Speaking on Deep Background, the Press Secretary whispered:
Hello all,
Was doing some upgrades on a UBR7246 (to a VXR), and I got to thinking about short sighted design considerations. I was curious if any of you had some pet peeves from a design perspective to rant about. I'll start with a couple.
1) The slide lock on transceiver cables.
2) Intel's+IBM's "640K" wall.
3) IDE addressing standards. (We've been through the 528 MB, 2.1 GB, 4.2 GB, 8.4 GB caps.... what's next?)
Are you asking? :) It would by my count be the 137.4GB limit of LBA28 which was already corrected with LBA48 if your motherboard supports it. Maybe you haven't had to use an IDE drive that large yet. ;) There may have been another limitation in there on IDE that I'm missing in some form... As a sidenote, MS (in trying to phase out FAT32 in favor of NTFS) started limiting the creation of FAT32 drives allowing a maximum of only 32GB in Windows 2000, but that doesn't really bother me. :) Vinny Abello Network Engineer Server Management vinny@tellurian.com (973)300-9211 x 125 (973)940-6125 (Direct) PGP Key Fingerprint: 3BC5 9A48 FC78 03D3 82E0 E935 5325 FBCB 0100 977A Tellurian Networks - The Ultimate Internet Connection http://www.tellurian.com (888)TELLURIAN There are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those that don't.
Was doing some upgrades on a UBR7246 (to a VXR), and I got to thinking about short sighted design considerations. I was curious if any of you had some pet peeves from a design perspective to rant about. I'll start with a couple.
Here are a few of mine: The little clippy widgets (looks kind of like @) on some oldschool racks, that hold the nut in place for the hex-head bolt. Why these were considered desirable is beyond me. The slimline DS3 patch panels. God help you should you need to do something with the two innermost wires on the back end of that- there's barely room for pliers, much less fingers. Procurve switch management interface. Archaic, arcane, insane, unusable. Cisco V-notched power cables - Design "feature" geared around getting suckers to buy a power cable for 45USD. ~Ben --- Ben Browning <benb@theriver.com> The River Internet Access Co. WA Operations Manager 1-877-88-RIVER http://www.theriver.com
On Thu, Sep 18, 2003 at 03:53:44PM -0700, Ben Browning wrote:
Procurve switch management interface. Archaic, arcane, insane, unusable.
I'm actually quite happy with the HP ProCurve switch interface, the web interface is the first thing to be disabled though. -- Matthew S. Hallacy FUBAR, LART, BOFH Certified http://www.poptix.net GPG public key 0x01938203
Your all missing my most favorite bad design decision. And I know that in other areas this has been mentioned and made fun of enough but ... Who thought it was a good idea to put braille on the drive up atms? And having a contact in banking I do know that banks pay extra for this feature its not just a case that they are all made this way. On Thu, 18 Sep 2003, Ben Browning wrote:
Was doing some upgrades on a UBR7246 (to a VXR), and I got to thinking about short sighted design considerations. I was curious if any of you had some pet peeves from a design perspective to rant about. I'll start with a couple.
Here are a few of mine:
The little clippy widgets (looks kind of like @) on some oldschool racks, that hold the nut in place for the hex-head bolt. Why these were considered desirable is beyond me.
The slimline DS3 patch panels. God help you should you need to do something with the two innermost wires on the back end of that- there's barely room for pliers, much less fingers.
Procurve switch management interface. Archaic, arcane, insane, unusable.
Cisco V-notched power cables - Design "feature" geared around getting suckers to buy a power cable for 45USD.
~Ben --- Ben Browning <benb@theriver.com> The River Internet Access Co. WA Operations Manager 1-877-88-RIVER http://www.theriver.com
I'm still trying to find out the point of labeling the light switches in airplanes. I can see the point of doing it if the button is obvious to the touch, but on some planes they use membrane switches that aren't obvious to the touch. I know the ADA probably requires them to label light switches, but the logic of doing so escapes me. -Paul On Thu, 2003-09-18 at 19:24, bmanning@karoshi.com wrote:
The US Congress. "can you say ADA - sure you can" - Fred Rodgers
Who thought it was a good idea to put braille on the drive up atms?
--bill (sorry ren, I couldn't resist) -- Paul Timmins <paul@timmins.net>
At 04:24 PM 9/18/2003, bmanning@karoshi.com wrote:
The US Congress. "can you say ADA - sure you can" - Fred Rodgers
Who thought it was a good idea to put braille on the drive up atms?
While I don't know if the person in question was blind or not, I *have* seen someone use a drive-up ATM from the back seat of a car. jc --- A: No. Q: Is it OK to top post?
On Thu, 18 Sep 2003 16:14:39 PDT, Scott Granados said:
Who thought it was a good idea to put braille on the drive up atms?
My dad's legally blind. That braille makes it possible for him to get cash (either from the back seat or step out and walk up) if somebody's giving him a ride, without him having to give his card and PIN to somebody else.
Just to clerify, since I've gotten a ton of these. I'm totally blind have been for 28 years. Braille on walk up machines, makes good sense. As does it on lifts and microwave oven buttons etc. It does not make good sense on airplane lights and it makes less sense on drive up atms. Especialy when you think it through long enough and if someone needs to use braille chances are they are visually impaired enough to not be able to read the screens at all. Thus when the atm doesn't speak back to you as many still don't your not sure what prompt your at. Many do speak in larger cities, with braille makes them very useful. But in a car again, generally the voice will be low enough, for obvious security ; and other reasons you won't hear it over the car and surround noise anyway. So that someone looking over your shoulder will still be there unless you've memorized the prompts on your local atm, a possibility granted. Its just a problem that hasn't been well thought out and baddly engineered! On Thu, 18 Sep 2003 Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu wrote:
On Thu, 18 Sep 2003 16:14:39 PDT, Scott Granados said:
Who thought it was a good idea to put braille on the drive up atms?
My dad's legally blind. That braille makes it possible for him to get cash (either from the back seat or step out and walk up) if somebody's giving him a ride, without him having to give his card and PIN to somebody else.
On Fri, 19 Sep 2003 12:08:33 PDT, Scott Granados said:
noise anyway. So that someone looking over your shoulder will still be there unless you've memorized the prompts on your local atm, a possibility granted.
Works for my dad - though he did have to call the bank once, turned out they had added a "Select English or Spanish" screen at the start....
On Thu, 18 Sep 2003, Ben Browning wrote:
Cisco V-notched power cables - Design "feature" geared around getting suckers to buy a power cable for 45USD.
No! those are great!! you get to yell at the poor sap that uses your Cisco power cable on their monitor! :) And when they do, and you can't get it back, or lose it, just grab their sun's power cable and cut a notch in the right end with your poocket knife :) -Chris
Once upon a time, Ben Browning <benb@theriver.com> said:
The little clippy widgets (looks kind of like @) on some oldschool racks, that hold the nut in place for the hex-head bolt. Why these were considered desirable is beyond me.
We've got a bunch of racks like that (and my PDP8 rack at home has them as well). The nice thing about them is if you get a screw cross threaded and chew up the threads, you can pop the clip off and put a new one on. With rack rails that are pre-threaded, you've just lost the use of a hole (or you can try to re-tap the hole, maybe ending up having to use a non-standard screw for just that hole). -- Chris Adams <cmadams@hiwaay.net> Systems and Network Administrator - HiWAAY Internet Services I don't speak for anybody but myself - that's enough trouble.
In a message written on Thu, Sep 18, 2003 at 03:53:44PM -0700, Ben Browning wrote:
Cisco V-notched power cables - Design "feature" geared around getting suckers to buy a power cable for 45USD.
Uh, you might want to be careful with these connections. You'll note the IEC-320 C13/C14 connectors (eg, what you find on PC's) are 15 Amps, but only 65 degC rated. The IEC-320 C15/C16 (with the notch) are also 15 Amps, but are rated to a pin temperature of 120 degC. I doubt Cisco did it to be a PITA, electrical codes probably required it for some reason. -- Leo Bicknell - bicknell@ufp.org - CCIE 3440 PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/ Read TMBG List - tmbg-list-request@tmbg.org, www.tmbg.org
--- Matt <acheron@qwest.net> wrote:
I've got a couple others in my head from 3Com and a couple of others, but I thought I'd get the ball rolling. So, what do you think?
Personally my issues are console-cable related: is there a benefit to the HUGE variety of console pinouts used by the various hardware vendors? Just look at vendor C as an example (I can think of four types immediately) - not only are the types of console port not standardized, but process for determining the location of the port clearly involved the reading of entrails... -David Barak -Fully RFC 1925 Compliant- __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
Without a question: PS/2 style keyboard and mouse connectors. Impossible to tell from each other, or the right way up without eyeballs directly on them. A real PITA when trying to reach behind a desk or rack. The console port is a close second, though... On Thu, 18 Sep 2003, David Barak wrote:
--- Matt <acheron@qwest.net> wrote:
I've got a couple others in my head from 3Com and a couple of others, but I thought I'd get the ball rolling. So, what do you think?
Personally my issues are console-cable related: is there a benefit to the HUGE variety of console pinouts used by the various hardware vendors? Just look at vendor C as an example (I can think of four types immediately) - not only are the types of console port not standardized, but process for determining the location of the port clearly involved the reading of entrails...
-David Barak -Fully RFC 1925 Compliant-
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
James Smallacombe PlantageNet, Inc. CEO and Janitor up@3.am http://3.am =========================================================================
On Thu, 18 Sep 2003 up@3.am wrote: : Without a question: PS/2 style keyboard and mouse connectors. Impossible : to tell from each other, And this part is somewhat funny, too, because the PS/2 connector layout is capable of having both devices share the same bus (there's two unconnected pins, which some laptops use to provide alternate CLK/DATA signals). If PS/2 mice used the unconnected pins rather than the same CLK/DATA pins as the keyboard, all machines could simply have two connectors using all six pins and you'd be able to plug either device into either socket. A real "bus" would have been better yet, but we're talking about a spec that came from a company bent on continuing to use simple TTL-based clocked communications with collision detection only available by extra bus lines (read: "bus and tag" 8-). -- -- Todd Vierling <tv@duh.org> <tv@pobox.com>
On Thu, 18 Sep 2003, Todd Vierling wrote:
On Thu, 18 Sep 2003 up@3.am wrote:
: Without a question: PS/2 style keyboard and mouse connectors. Impossible : to tell from each other,
And this part is somewhat funny, too, because the PS/2 connector layout is capable of having both devices share the same bus (there's two unconnected pins, which some laptops use to provide alternate CLK/DATA signals).
If PS/2 mice used the unconnected pins rather than the same CLK/DATA pins as the keyboard, all machines could simply have two connectors using all six pins and you'd be able to plug either device into either socket.
In other words it should work like Apple's ADB (Apple Desktop Bus) ports do (did until they moved to USB). I really miss those ports. Justin
RJ21 patch panel connectors that are designed in such a way that you can only screw down one end of the connector have consistently ruined my day. Untold headaches with intermitten connectivity on devices using the east end of the connector because crowded conditions in the cabinet cause the thick, unwieldy cables to lift the unscrewed end ever-so-slightly out of its socket. -bob -----Original Message----- From: owner-nanog@merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog@merit.edu] On Behalf Of up@3.am Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2003 10:57 AM To: nanog@merit.edu Subject: Re: Worst design decisions? Without a question: PS/2 style keyboard and mouse connectors. Impossible to tell from each other, or the right way up without eyeballs directly on them. A real PITA when trying to reach behind a desk or rack. The console port is a close second, though... On Thu, 18 Sep 2003, David Barak wrote:
--- Matt <acheron@qwest.net> wrote:
I've got a couple others in my head from 3Com and a couple of others, but I thought I'd get the ball rolling. So, what do you think?
Personally my issues are console-cable related: is there a benefit to the HUGE variety of console pinouts used by the various hardware vendors? Just look at vendor C as an example (I can think of four types immediately) - not only are the types of console port not standardized, but process for determining the location of the port clearly involved the reading of entrails...
-David Barak -Fully RFC 1925 Compliant-
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
James Smallacombe PlantageNet, Inc. CEO and Janitor up@3.am http://3.am ======================================================================== =
Its even funnier what happens when a customer confuses a Netopia console connector with that of the power connector from the next revision :) -----Original Message----- From: owner-nanog@merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog@merit.edu] On Behalf Of up@3.am Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2003 10:57 AM To: nanog@merit.edu Subject: Re: Worst design decisions? Without a question: PS/2 style keyboard and mouse connectors. Impossible to tell from each other, or the right way up without eyeballs directly on them. A real PITA when trying to reach behind a desk or rack. The console port is a close second, though...
On Thu, 18 Sep 2003, David Barak wrote:
--- Matt <acheron@qwest.net> wrote:
I've got a couple others in my head from 3Com and a couple of others, but I thought I'd get the ball rolling. So, what do you think?
Personally my issues are console-cable related: is there a benefit to the HUGE variety of console pinouts used by the various hardware vendors? Just look at vendor C as an example (I can think of four types immediately) - not only are the types of console port not standardized, but process for determining the location of the port clearly involved the reading of entrails...
<Applause> I can think of 6 different console cable pinouts and connectors that Enterasys (Cabletron) has used over the years. No wait, make that 7. How could I forget the inherited Fore ATM architecture and subsequent blades. Could people just pick ONE pinout and connector and stick with it? Please! Of course I also have a Cisco 675 that I've been unable to use for years simply because I have yet to figure out what ungodly pinout Cisco used in it. Justin
In the immortal words of Justin Shore (listuser@numbnuts.net):
<Applause>
I can think of 6 different console cable pinouts and connectors that Enterasys (Cabletron) has used over the years. No wait, make that 7. How could I forget the inherited Fore ATM architecture and subsequent blades. Could people just pick ONE pinout and connector and stick with it? Please! Of course I also have a Cisco 675 that I've been unable to use for years simply because I have yet to figure out what ungodly pinout Cisco used in it.
<AOL/> The hands-down winner, so far, is the Cisco CMS-formerly-known-as-Arrowpoint, which has an RJ45 console cable which WILL NOT WORK, full stop, with the RJ45 connectors on Cisco's own console servers. *wild applause* In my fevered dreams, someone with actual clout, perhaps the IEEE, defines a spec for serial login consoles over USB and all vendors start to use it, but that's never, ever gonna happen. -n ------------------------------------------------------------<memory@blank.org> "I like my beer cold, my TV loud, and my homosexuals FLAAAA-MING!" (--Homer Simpson) <http://blank.org/memory/>----------------------------------------------------
David Barak wrote:
Personally my issues are console-cable related: is there a benefit to the HUGE variety of console pinouts used by the various hardware vendors? Just look at vendor C as an example [...]
Is that the best example you can come up with? Ever use any Bay equipment...? Heh. Makes me want to add "I hate it when that happens", as in "Ever put your head in a vise and crank it down real tight...?" Peter E. Fry
PEF> Date: Thu, 18 Sep 2003 11:02:08 -0500 PEF> From: Peter E. Fry PEF> Is that the best example you can come up with? Ever use any PEF> Bay equipment...? You have reminded me of Bay's config GUI. I shall have nightmares tonight. Eddy -- Brotsman & Dreger, Inc. - EverQuick Internet Division Bandwidth, consulting, e-commerce, hosting, and network building Phone: +1 785 865 5885 Lawrence and [inter]national Phone: +1 316 794 8922 Wichita _________________________________________________________________ DO NOT send mail to the following addresses : blacklist@brics.com -or- alfra@intc.net -or- curbjmp@intc.net Sending mail to spambait addresses is a great way to get blocked.
On Thu, 18 Sep 2003, E.B. Dreger wrote:
PEF> From: Peter E. Fry PEF> Is that the best example you can come up with? Ever use any PEF> Bay equipment...?
You have reminded me of Bay's config GUI. I shall have nightmares tonight.
How about BCC? bcc#config ... wait ... -- Dominic J. Eidson "Baruk Khazad! Khazad ai-menu!" - Gimli ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.the-infinite.org/ http://www.the-infinite.org/~dominic/
----- Original Message ----- From: "E.B. Dreger" <eddy+public+spam@noc.everquick.net> To: <nanog@merit.edu> Cc: <pfry@swbell.net> Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2003 1:04 PM Subject: Re: Worst design decisions?
You have reminded me of Bay's config GUI. I shall have nightmares tonight.
Ah, the days when I used to work on Bay routers. I've trashed routers with the GUI. Ran like a dog on even the fastest machines. The CLI config isn't much better either The best thing though was finding that some of the Bay routers (the ARN mostly) had their CLI config ripped out to save space on the flash card. Half the time I was on site with a customer when I discovered this. I always carried a Mac laptop, so I was royally screwed. -------------------------- Brian Bruns The Summit Open Source Development Group Open Solutions For A Closed World / Anti-Spam Resources http://www.2mbit.com ICQ: 8077511
On Thu, 18 Sep 2003 17:04:47 +0000 (GMT), E.B. Dreger <eddy+public+spam@noc.everquick.net> wrote:
You have reminded me of Bay's config GUI. I shall have nightmares tonight.
Back in the winter of '00, I had the pleasure of working on a friend's old Bay. He was using it for a home-based ISP, and, well, I believe that it didn't want to do CIDR. Noone knew the Manager password, either, so much recovery had to occur. To make matters more interesting, this was in a garage, and the lake effect machine had kicked in. And I was being an idiot. I don't remember the exact details (who said the human brain doesn't have incredible defense and self-repair mechanisms), but I sent out a narrative regarding the situation to a group of friends, and got the following reply back: """ Subject: Re: Fear and Loathing in AN-DIAG hehe...three things a Rochester sysadmin should always remember.... 1) Always make a backup, 2) Always try the Manager login, 3) Always count on lake effect. """ It's still on my monitor. I did get to send off a PFY to deal with a Cray router, though. -rt -- Ryan Tucker Network Engineer NetAccess, Inc. 1159 Pittsford-Victor Road Bldg. 5, Suite 140 Pittsford, New York 14534 585-419-8200 www.netacc.net
Even better: the old bay switches had a backdoor password, that you could always use no matter what. Great security there. Grrrr. I had to deal with a campus full of them, and since they had of course forgotten all the passwords, so it was a good thing in that case, I could actually reconfigure them without calling support. On Thu, 18 Sep 2003, Ryan Tucker wrote:
Back in the winter of '00, I had the pleasure of working on a friend's old Bay. He was using it for a home-based ISP, and, well, I believe that it didn't want to do CIDR. Noone knew the Manager password, either, so much recovery had to occur. To make matters more interesting, this was in a garage, and the lake effect machine had kicked in. And I was being an idiot.
I don't remember the exact details (who said the human brain doesn't have incredible defense and self-repair mechanisms), but I sent out a narrative regarding the situation to a group of friends, and got the following reply back:
""" Subject: Re: Fear and Loathing in AN-DIAG
hehe...three things a Rochester sysadmin should always remember....
1) Always make a backup, 2) Always try the Manager login, 3) Always count on lake effect. """
It's still on my monitor.
I did get to send off a PFY to deal with a Cray router, though. -rt
David Barak wrote:
Personally my issues are console-cable related: is there a benefit to the HUGE variety of console pinouts used by the various hardware vendors? Just look at vendor C as an example [...]
Makes me remember when representatives from mentioned vendor made funny looks when I suggested putting USB consoles on the boxes. Which would report to the host as USB serial (with possible other instances). Would make cable management easier with larger number of consoles. Pete
Hello all,
Was doing some upgrades on a UBR7246 (to a VXR), and I got to thinking about short sighted design considerations. I was curious if any of you had some pet peeves from a design perspective to rant about. I'll start with a couple. <snip>
try cisco-nsp. Single vendor stuff is off-topic on nanog.
participants (35)
-
Aaron Dewell -
Alex Rubenstein -
bdragon＠gweep.net -
Ben Browning -
bmanning＠karoshi.com -
Bob German -
Brian Bruns -
Chris Adams -
Chris Horry -
Christopher L. Morrow -
David Barak -
David Lesher -
Dominic J. Eidson -
E.B. Dreger -
Frank -
JC Dill -
Justin Shore -
Leo Bicknell -
Mark Borchers -
Mark Rogaski -
Matt -
Matthew S. Hallacy -
Nathan J. Mehl -
neal rauhauser -
Paul Timmins -
Peter E. Fry -
Petri Helenius -
Ryan Dobrynski -
Ryan Tucker -
Scott Granados -
Todd Vierling -
up＠3.am -
Valdis.Kletnieks＠vt.edu -
Vinny Abello -
Wojtek Zlobicki