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Moving IT infrastructure

One of the things I get to plan is moving the IT infrastructure. Pulling the plugs and moving the servers is the easy part; but what about the DSL, static IP, mail, MX records, DNS..

I think I’ve found a solution for the mail (hosting the mail server) and the DNS is already moved out and re-hosted on two different DNS servers. Might be just web-mail for a week or so – but that’s more than enough.

The blogs and photos will be offline while the servers are on the move – the rest of the infrastructure is just internal stuff; NAS, print, authentication etc.

Any hints and tips from those that have moved SLES and Windows 2003 servers before?

Airtunes and 802.11b

I’ve got three Apple Airport Express units to stream music around the house. They work really well – and when used with Rogue Amoeba Airfoil I can play pretty much any music now via Airtunes.

However… I’ve had a sticky problem for the last year – 50% of the time iTunes or Airfoil just can’t see all of the Airport Express boxes. I’ve spent a lot of time researching Bonjour (aka Rendezvous, zero touch, multicast DNS) and doing packet traces. No joy. Everything looks fine; the multicast DNS is working fine over 5353; the radius is within limits; firewalls are non-blocking; the data is not crossing a router. I was stumped.

Tonight I think I fixed the issue. As part of de-cluttering for the impeding house move I took my last 802.11b device off the wireless subnet and bumped the configuration to be exclusively 802.11g. Instantly everything started working.

So in summary: Airport Express, Airtunes, iTunes and Airfoil really work well on an exclusive 802.11g network.

Hope this helps someone else.

SMTP, hotels, SMTP proxies and secure SMTP

Most hotel internet connections use an outbound SMTP proxy to store and forward email.

I’m never happy with that – it means that my mail could be delayed/lost/corrupted/tampered with/read on the way.

[Note: I know – SMTP is SMTP – it’s not secure; it’s like writing a postcard – but if I can avoid that proxy – it’s one less set of eyes..]

I’ve now configured Thunderbird to connect to a high port that’s NATted back down to port 25; I’ve also forced TLS to the mail server.

In theory that should keep my outbound mail (or really internal mail that only sits on my web server) a bit safer.

Benefits

(Not a rant; I’ve not had the Kool Aid or the Lobotomy yet..)

Really only of interest to US readers – those in Europe probably have no idea of the context here.

My 16 month old boy needed tympanostomy tubes (ear tubes or ear grommets) to drain off fluid from a recurring ear infection. A five minute procedure – but it does involve day surgery and a general anesthetic.

My previous health care benefits were excellent – friends in Utah kept telling us we had incredible insurance – with good coverage, choice and a reasonable deductible and co-pay. Even so we estimated that we would end up being around $750 out of pocket for the ear tubes.

Microsoft Health care is fully funded. No deduction from my pay; no co-pay; no deductible. Incredible.

Before I joined Microsoft everyone I knew who had joined raved about the benefits. Now I know it’s true.

Take a look at this: http://www.viewmyworld.com/ – especially the first video on Microsoft Perks.

SNAG-1207