Worst design decisions?

Thu Sep 18 17:38:18 UTC 2003

On Thu, 18 Sep 2003 17:04:47 +0000 (GMT), E.B. Dreger 
<eddy+public+spam at 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