Marc Haber <mh+usenetspam1118@zugschl.us> writes:
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
Marc Haber wrote:
Second, blocking incoming echo requests makes debugging harder and
doesn't give you increased security.
When a certain server I had responsibility for was undergoing a
security audit for PCI compliance many years ago, I was told, not
to turn off ICMP replies, but to turn off timestamps on them.
Apparently, knowing the server’s idea of the correct time was seen
as a potential security vulnerability.
The justification is more likely to have been attack surface
minimization.
On 11/08/2025 23:02, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
I don’t know. I’m just able to read documentation. I thought that was a >> skill that was so commonplace among folks who work with computers for a
living that you could take it for granted, but apparently not.
The horror is manuals written by the code-writer. They describe in
intimate detail each and every function; but not how it all hooks up. In this case, I'd not even seen the nft man page, because I'd been
searching for the wrong terms, hadn't got there because I'd got drowned
in a morass of ipfilter and similar stuff, now apparently out-of-date;
and gave it up as a bad job.
What's wrong with a couple of clear examples, plus the detail to expand
on them?
On Wed, 6 Aug 2025 12:46:30 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I don't trust my router, provided by the ISP.
I bought my own. I could even run my own routing stack on a Linux box.
On 2025-08-12 09:39, Mike Scott wrote:
On 11/08/2025 23:02, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
I don’t know. I’m just able to read documentation. I thought that was a >>> skill that was so commonplace among folks who work with computers for a
living that you could take it for granted, but apparently not.
The horror is manuals written by the code-writer. They describe in
intimate detail each and every function; but not how it all hooks up.
In this case, I'd not even seen the nft man page, because I'd been
searching for the wrong terms, hadn't got there because I'd got
drowned in a morass of ipfilter and similar stuff, now apparently out-
of-date; and gave it up as a bad job.
What's wrong with a couple of clear examples, plus the detail to
expand on them?
+1
(I'd given up on chatgpt ages ago, when it made Noddy mistakes on
trivial code examples. Looks like things have improved since then.)
What's wrong with a couple of clear examples, plus the detail to expand+1
on them?
It still does make noddy mistakes.
On 2025-08-07 01:56, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
On Wed, 6 Aug 2025 12:46:30 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I don't trust my router, provided by the ISP.
I bought my own. I could even run my own routing stack on a Linux box.
The configuration needed by the ISP on the router is not documented ...
On Tue, 19 Aug 2025 12:41:46 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-08-07 01:56, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
On Wed, 6 Aug 2025 12:46:30 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I don't trust my router, provided by the ISP.
I bought my own. I could even run my own routing stack on a Linux box.
The configuration needed by the ISP on the router is not documented ...
Here in NZ it’s all standard protocols. I bought the router from a local retailer, not from the ISP. Setup was straightforward -- the router calls the setup option I am using “Dynamic IP”, but I think it’s just DHCP.
On 2025-08-20, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
On Tue, 19 Aug 2025 12:41:46 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-08-07 01:56, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
On Wed, 6 Aug 2025 12:46:30 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I don't trust my router, provided by the ISP.
I bought my own. I could even run my own routing stack on a Linux box.
The configuration needed by the ISP on the router is not documented ...
Here in NZ it’s all standard protocols. I bought the router from a local >> retailer, not from the ISP. Setup was straightforward -- the router calls
the setup option I am using “Dynamic IP”, but I think it’s just DHCP.
In this case, I think we're talking about a box with router and a bunch
of other stuff, to deal with incoming GPON (can this part still be
called modem, or the workings of fiber disqualify that?)
and at least
outgoing coax for TV, RJ11 for telephony and 8p8c for Ethernet.
I've seen these called "ONT", but it seems (from another thread here)
that this may not be entirely appropriate either?
On Tue, 19 Aug 2025 12:35:53 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
What's wrong with a couple of clear examples, plus the detail to expand+1
on them?
There’s a whole website devoted to that, as I mentioned elsewhere.
On 2025-08-20, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
On Tue, 19 Aug 2025 12:41:46 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-08-07 01:56, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
On Wed, 6 Aug 2025 12:46:30 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I don't trust my router, provided by the ISP.
I bought my own. I could even run my own routing stack on a Linux box.
The configuration needed by the ISP on the router is not documented ...
Here in NZ it’s all standard protocols. I bought the router from a local >> retailer, not from the ISP. Setup was straightforward -- the router calls
the setup option I am using “Dynamic IP”, but I think it’s just DHCP.
In this case, I think we're talking about a box with router and a bunch
of other stuff, to deal with incoming GPON (can this part still be
called modem, or the workings of fiber disqualify that?) and at least outgoing coax for TV, RJ11 for telephony and 8p8c for Ethernet.
I've seen these called "ONT", but it seems (from another thread here)
that this may not be entirely appropriate either?
Yes, it is GPON. Now the ONT is integrated inside the router. So the
router has an optical input, has two phone connectors, 4 ethernet connectors, and one WiFi access point.
It is all standard protocols, but they have to be configured. The
optical interface needs some parameters, maybe there is a login and
password or client number somewhere. The channel in the GPON setup.
The television service needs an VLAN, the VoIp phone service needs another... there are a lot of details in the configuration of those many standard services that have to be configured. There is not, to my
knowledge, an ISP provided document listing all that.
There might be in the market routers in which I simply click "Telefónica Spain setup" and all is done, but I don't know about them. This did
exist with ADSL.
That's a fine thing to have in *addition* to proper man pages, but whenWhat's wrong with a couple of clear examples, plus the detail to+1
expand on them?
There’s a whole website devoted to that, as I mentioned elsewhere.
On 2025-08-12 09:39, Mike Scott wrote:
On 11/08/2025 23:02, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
I don’t know. I’m just able to read documentation. I thought that was a >>> skill that was so commonplace among folks who work with computers for a
living that you could take it for granted, but apparently not.
The horror is manuals written by the code-writer. They describe in
intimate detail each and every function; but not how it all hooks up. In
this case, I'd not even seen the nft man page, because I'd been
searching for the wrong terms, hadn't got there because I'd got drowned
in a morass of ipfilter and similar stuff, now apparently out-of-date;
and gave it up as a bad job.
What's wrong with a couple of clear examples, plus the detail to expand
on them?
+1
On 2025-08-20 03:01, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
On Tue, 19 Aug 2025 12:35:53 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
What's wrong with a couple of clear examples, plus the detail to+1
expand on them?
There’s a whole website devoted to that, as I mentioned elsewhere.
Not good enough, it should be inside the manuals.
On Wed, 20 Aug 2025 01:01:32 -0000 (UTC)
Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
What's wrong with a couple of clear examples, plus the detail to+1
expand on them?
There’s a whole website devoted to that, as I mentioned elsewhere.
That's a fine thing to have in *addition* to proper man pages ...
Routers were never juts routers either, they were routers plus switches
plus modems plus wireless bridges...
Yes, it is GPON. Now the ONT is integrated inside the router.
Optical Network Terminator. That's better than NTE at least
Oh well, its all grist to the ArtStudent™ mill where names and ideas are far more important that the reality of what they refer to.
Routers were never juts routers either, they were routers plus switches
plus modems plus wireless bridges...
What's wrong with a couple of clear examples, plus the detail to
expand on them?
On Wed, 20 Aug 2025 12:52:56 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-08-20 03:01, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
On Tue, 19 Aug 2025 12:35:53 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
What's wrong with a couple of clear examples, plus the detail to+1
expand on them?
There’s a whole website devoted to that, as I mentioned elsewhere.
Not good enough, it should be inside the manuals.
The man page has examples, too. Naturally a tutorial/wiki site has more.
Remember what reference documentation is for: it’s to act, no more and no less, as the definitive reference to all the details of functionality, not
to offer hand-holding tutorial recipes for every conceivable thing you
might want to do with that functionality.
Le 19-08-2025, Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> a écrit :
On 2025-08-12 09:39, Mike Scott wrote:
On 11/08/2025 23:02, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
I don’t know. I’m just able to read documentation. I thought that was a
skill that was so commonplace among folks who work with computers for a >>>> living that you could take it for granted, but apparently not.
The horror is manuals written by the code-writer. They describe in
intimate detail each and every function; but not how it all hooks up. In >>> this case, I'd not even seen the nft man page, because I'd been
searching for the wrong terms, hadn't got there because I'd got drowned
in a morass of ipfilter and similar stuff, now apparently out-of-date;
and gave it up as a bad job.
What's wrong with a couple of clear examples, plus the detail to expand
on them?
+1
Just "man tldr". In fact no. Install tldr with your distro package
manager. Then "tldr tldr".
Enjoy.
On Wed, 20 Aug 2025 13:04:14 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
Yes, it is GPON. Now the ONT is integrated inside the router.
Not here in NZ, it isn’t. The demarcation is clear: the ONT is part of the house fittings (like curtains or the oven), while the router is a separate piece of property. The physical fibre network, up to and including the
ONT, is managed by a company (Tuatahi Fibre) that is not an ISP and does
not provide any Internet services.
I do not want reference documentation.
I primarily want documentation that allows me to start using a new
program, fast, and to achieve my goals.
Once I have that, I want the reference documentation.
On 21/08/2025 10:44, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I do not want reference documentation.
I primarily want documentation that allows me to start using a new
program, fast, and to achieve my goals.
Once I have that, I want the reference documentation.
+1001
On 2025-08-21 12:34, The Natural Philosopher wrote:[...]
On 21/08/2025 10:44, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I do not want reference documentation.
I primarily want documentation that allows me to start using a new
program, fast, and to achieve my goals.
Once I have that, I want the reference documentation.
+1001
To that I added "bird.avi" as output file, but WhatsApp rejected
it. So I told ChatGpt all that. It replied giving me the missing data:
ffmpeg -i IMAG0009.avi -vf "scale=640:-2" -c:v libx264 -profile:v \
baseline -level 3.0 -preset fast -c:a aac -b:a 128k \
-movflags +faststart bird_whatsapp.mp4
and that worked. Having that command line, I modified it easily for
more resolution (scale=1024:-2). I was already familiar with all the
options, I just needed to find which would produce the wanted result,
and not spend a day on it.
But if I want to find in the manual what "-b" stands for, I fail. Ask chatgpt, instant reply, it is bitrate. Oh, yes, I remember now.
:-)
Oh, searching the man for "movflags" or "faststart" fails. So ask the
AI. They are in the man page for the MP3 muxer, it says. Oh, right, I
forgot that.
So, even a reference manual is hard to use when you want to find a
particular reference, basically using "grep".
On 2025-08-21, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-08-21 12:34, The Natural Philosopher wrote:[...]
On 21/08/2025 10:44, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I do not want reference documentation.
I primarily want documentation that allows me to start using a new
program, fast, and to achieve my goals.
Once I have that, I want the reference documentation.
+1001
To that I added "bird.avi" as output file, but WhatsApp rejected
it. So I told ChatGpt all that. It replied giving me the missing data:
ffmpeg -i IMAG0009.avi -vf "scale=640:-2" -c:v libx264 -profile:v \
baseline -level 3.0 -preset fast -c:a aac -b:a 128k \
-movflags +faststart bird_whatsapp.mp4
and that worked. Having that command line, I modified it easily for
more resolution (scale=1024:-2). I was already familiar with all the
options, I just needed to find which would produce the wanted result,
and not spend a day on it.
But if I want to find in the manual what "-b" stands for, I fail. Ask
chatgpt, instant reply, it is bitrate. Oh, yes, I remember now.
:-)
Oh, searching the man for "movflags" or "faststart" fails. So ask the
AI. They are in the man page for the MP3 muxer, it says. Oh, right, I
forgot that.
So, even a reference manual is hard to use when you want to find a
particular reference, basically using "grep".
(ffmpeg's online manual is spread over more than one page, isn't it?)
I do not want reference documentation.
Oh, searching the man for "movflags" or "faststart" fails. So ask the
AI. They are in the man page for the MP3 muxer, it says. Oh, right, I
forgot that.
One day they came, removed the ONT and the router, and placed a new
router. One box less.
Everything belongs to one company, Telefónica. It is possible to
contract a different company, but the physical fibre is the same one.
On 2025-08-21 15:27, Nuno Silva wrote:
On 2025-08-21, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-08-21 12:34, The Natural Philosopher wrote:[...]
On 21/08/2025 10:44, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I do not want reference documentation.
I primarily want documentation that allows me to start using a new
program, fast, and to achieve my goals.
Once I have that, I want the reference documentation.
+1001
To that I added "bird.avi" as output file, but WhatsApp rejected
it. So I told ChatGpt all that. It replied giving me the missing data:
ffmpeg -i IMAG0009.avi -vf "scale=640:-2" -c:v libx264 -profile:v \
baseline -level 3.0 -preset fast -c:a aac -b:a 128k \
-movflags +faststart bird_whatsapp.mp4
and that worked. Having that command line, I modified it easily for
more resolution (scale=1024:-2). I was already familiar with all the
options, I just needed to find which would produce the wanted result,
and not spend a day on it.
But if I want to find in the manual what "-b" stands for, I fail. Ask
chatgpt, instant reply, it is bitrate. Oh, yes, I remember now.
:-)
Oh, searching the man for "movflags" or "faststart" fails. So ask the
AI. They are in the man page for the MP3 muxer, it says. Oh, right, I
forgot that.
So, even a reference manual is hard to use when you want to find a
particular reference, basically using "grep".
(ffmpeg's online manual is spread over more than one page, isn't it?)
Yes.
I don't know right now if there is a command that would search all
manuals and find a word.
cer@Telcontar:~> apropos movflags
movflags: nothing appropriate.
cer@Telcontar:~>
On Thu, 21 Aug 2025 11:44:47 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I do not want reference documentation.
Then you can’t work in this field.
On 2025-08-21, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-08-21 15:27, Nuno Silva wrote:
On 2025-08-21, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-08-21 12:34, The Natural Philosopher wrote:[...]
On 21/08/2025 10:44, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I do not want reference documentation.
I primarily want documentation that allows me to start using a new >>>>>> program, fast, and to achieve my goals.
Once I have that, I want the reference documentation.
+1001
To that I added "bird.avi" as output file, but WhatsApp rejected
it. So I told ChatGpt all that. It replied giving me the missing data: >>>>
ffmpeg -i IMAG0009.avi -vf "scale=640:-2" -c:v libx264 -profile:v \
baseline -level 3.0 -preset fast -c:a aac -b:a 128k \
-movflags +faststart bird_whatsapp.mp4
and that worked. Having that command line, I modified it easily for
more resolution (scale=1024:-2). I was already familiar with all the
options, I just needed to find which would produce the wanted result,
and not spend a day on it.
But if I want to find in the manual what "-b" stands for, I fail. Ask
chatgpt, instant reply, it is bitrate. Oh, yes, I remember now.
:-)
Oh, searching the man for "movflags" or "faststart" fails. So ask the
AI. They are in the man page for the MP3 muxer, it says. Oh, right, I
forgot that.
So, even a reference manual is hard to use when you want to find a
particular reference, basically using "grep".
(ffmpeg's online manual is spread over more than one page, isn't it?)
Yes.
I don't know right now if there is a command that would search all
manuals and find a word.
cer@Telcontar:~> apropos movflags
movflags: nothing appropriate.
cer@Telcontar:~>
At least here, perhaps "man -w -K movflags". Turns up ffmpeg-all and ffmpeg-formats.
(But no, I wasn't aware of this, had to check "man man", so maybe
there's some better man flag, or separate utility that I'm not aware of (besides plain grep on the man pages where possible, I guess).)
On Thu, 21 Aug 2025 12:15:18 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
One day they came, removed the ONT and the router, and placed a new
router. One box less.
And no more possibility of demarcation. Bad.
Another thing that the ONT allows is, I have my landline from a different provider from my Internet connection. They come out of different ports on
the box in my house, though they get here on the same physical piece of fibre.
Everything belongs to one company, Telefónica. It is possible to
contract a different company, but the physical fibre is the same one.
This sounds like NZ about 30 years ago, after NZ Telecom was privatized,
and just as the Internet was taking off. Too late, it was realized that
this left control of the entire NZ phone-number space, as well as
ownership of the copper lines into every household, in private hands.
The latter problem was solved by the local-loop unbundling I mentioned elsewhere -- some described it as a renationalization of the “last-mile” copper network in all but name. That made a big difference to the competitiveness of the broadband market.
And the mistake was not repeated when the fibre network was put in place.
On 2025-08-22 03:18, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
On Thu, 21 Aug 2025 12:15:18 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
One day they came, removed the ONT and the router, and placed a new
router. One box less.
And no more possibility of demarcation. Bad.
One good thing, is that we have access to the VoIP configuration and
install (undocumented) true VoIP phones. We did not have access to
configure the ONT, and thus, the phone.
I believe people have reverse engineered it all. I was told there is
some EU directive saying people have the right to install their own
routers.
Another thing that the ONT allows is, I have my landline from a different
provider from my Internet connection. They come out of different ports on
the box in my house, though they get here on the same physical piece of
fibre.
Everything belongs to one company, Telefónica. It is possible to
contract a different company, but the physical fibre is the same one.
This sounds like NZ about 30 years ago, after NZ Telecom was privatized,
and just as the Internet was taking off. Too late, it was realized that
this left control of the entire NZ phone-number space, as well as
ownership of the copper lines into every household, in private hands.
The latter problem was solved by the local-loop unbundling I mentioned
elsewhere -- some described it as a renationalization of the “last-mile” >> copper network in all but name. That made a big difference to the
competitiveness of the broadband market.
And the mistake was not repeated when the fibre network was put in place.
I worked in this field years ago, before fibre. I have not seen the
fibre exchanges, how they do things.
On 22/08/2025 11:45, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-08-22 03:18, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
On Thu, 21 Aug 2025 12:15:18 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
One day they came, removed the ONT and the router, and placed a new
router. One box less.
And no more possibility of demarcation. Bad.
One good thing, is that we have access to the VoIP configuration and
install (undocumented) true VoIP phones. We did not have access to
configure the ONT, and thus, the phone.
I believe people have reverse engineered it all. I was told there is
some EU directive saying people have the right to install their own
routers.
Another thing that the ONT allows is, I have my landline from a
different
provider from my Internet connection. They come out of different
ports on
the box in my house, though they get here on the same physical piece of
fibre.
Everything belongs to one company, Telefónica. It is possible to
contract a different company, but the physical fibre is the same one.
This sounds like NZ about 30 years ago, after NZ Telecom was privatized, >>> and just as the Internet was taking off. Too late, it was realized that
this left control of the entire NZ phone-number space, as well as
ownership of the copper lines into every household, in private hands.
The latter problem was solved by the local-loop unbundling I mentioned
elsewhere -- some described it as a renationalization of the “last-mile”
copper network in all but name. That made a big difference to the
competitiveness of the broadband market.
And the mistake was not repeated when the fibre network was put in
place.
I worked in this field years ago, before fibre. I have not seen the
fibre exchanges, how they do things.
Fundamentally its just like a big ethernet switch bank. Shit loads of
fibres going into a rack mount unit and one or two coming out the back.
Plus some power
On 2025-08-22 20:37, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 22/08/2025 11:45, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-08-22 03:18, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
On Thu, 21 Aug 2025 12:15:18 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
One day they came, removed the ONT and the router, and placed a new
router. One box less.
And no more possibility of demarcation. Bad.
One good thing, is that we have access to the VoIP configuration and
install (undocumented) true VoIP phones. We did not have access to
configure the ONT, and thus, the phone.
I believe people have reverse engineered it all. I was told there is
some EU directive saying people have the right to install their own
routers.
Another thing that the ONT allows is, I have my landline from a
different
provider from my Internet connection. They come out of different
ports on
the box in my house, though they get here on the same physical piece of >>>> fibre.
Everything belongs to one company, Telefónica. It is possible toThis sounds like NZ about 30 years ago, after NZ Telecom was
contract a different company, but the physical fibre is the same one. >>>>
privatized,
and just as the Internet was taking off. Too late, it was realized that >>>> this left control of the entire NZ phone-number space, as well as
ownership of the copper lines into every household, in private hands.
The latter problem was solved by the local-loop unbundling I mentioned >>>> elsewhere -- some described it as a renationalization of the
“last-mile”
copper network in all but name. That made a big difference to the
competitiveness of the broadband market.
And the mistake was not repeated when the fibre network was put in
place.
I worked in this field years ago, before fibre. I have not seen the
fibre exchanges, how they do things.
Fundamentally its just like a big ethernet switch bank. Shit loads of
fibres going into a rack mount unit and one or two coming out the back.
Plus some power
The electronics to accept that amount of bandwidth must be impressive.
What they did with cable, is that the cable arrived at a... I don't know
the name in English. On one side of a rack, the cables are wrapped on
pins, thousands of them. At the other side, another pair goes to a
similar rack, that belongs to each company. So you can easily rewire the cable coming from a customer to the exchange, and there route physically
to the rack of the actual company that supplies phone service to that customer.
With fibre it is not possible, because each fibre brings 16 customers
time multiplexed. It must be software.
A packet from your ONT gets thrown onto a huge optical backbone via the
OLT and routed off to the ISP.
What they did with cable, is that the cable arrived at a... I don't know
the name in English. On one side of a rack, the cables are wrapped on
pins, thousands of them. At the other side, another pair goes to a
similar rack, that belongs to each company. So you can easily rewire the cable coming from a customer to the exchange, and there route physically
to the rack of the actual company that supplies phone service to that customer.
| Sysop: | DaiTengu |
|---|---|
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| Nodes: | 10 (0 / 10) |
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| Calls: | 13,691 |
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| Files: | 186,935 |
| D/L today: |
22 files (1,452K bytes) |
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