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Search - "oh it worked! yay"
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I think my most favorite part of programming is when I just try something out and it actually works despite really just guessing.4
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I really wanna share this with you guys.
We have a couple of physical servers (yeah, I know) provided by a company owned by a friend of my boss. One of them, which I'll refer to as S1, hosted a couple of websites based on Drupal 7... Long story short, every php file got compromised after someone used a vulnerability within D7's core to inject malicious code. Whatver, wasn't a project of mine, and no one bothered to do anything about it... The client was even happy about not doing anything about it. We did stop making backups of such websites however, to avoid spreading the damage (right?). So, no one cared about this for months!
But last monday? The physical server was offline. I powered it on again via its web management interface... Dead after less than an hour. No backups. Oh well, I guess I couls keep powering it on to check what's wrong with it and attempt to fix it...
That's when I've learned how the web management interface works: power on/reboot requests prompted actual workers to reach the physical server and press the power on/reboot buttons.
That took a while to sink in. I mean, ok, theu are physical servers... But aren't they managed anyhow? They are just... Whatever. Rebooting over and over wasn't the solution, so I asked if they could move the HDD to another of our servers... The answer was it required to buy a "server installation" package. In short, we'd have had to buy a new physical server, or renew the subscription of one we already owned for 6 months.
So... I've literally spent the rest of the day bothering their emoloyeea to reboot S1, until I've reached the "daily reboot reauests limit" (which amounts to 3 reauests. seriously), whicj magically opened a support ticket where a random guy advised to stop using VNC as "the server was responsive" and offeres to help me with the command line.
Fiiine, I sort of appreciate it. My next message has been a kernel log which shows how the OS dying out was due to physical components becoming unavailable after a while, and how S1 lacked a VNC server, being accessible only via ssh. So, the daily reboot limit was removes for S1. Yay.
...What to do though? S1 was down, we had no backups, and asking for manual rebooting every time was slow as Hell. ....Then I went insane. I asked for 1 more reboot. su. crontab -e. */15 * * * * /sbin/shutdown -r +5. while true; do; rsync --timeout=20 --append S1:/stuff .; sleep 60; done.
It worked. We have now again access to 4 hacked, shitty Drupal 7 websites. My boss stopped shouting. I can get back to my own projects.
Apparently, those D7 websites got back online too, still with malicious php code within them. Well, not my problem (for now).
Meanwhile, S1 is still rebooting.3 -
Been working on a new project for the last couple of weeks. New client with a big name, probably lots of money for the company I work for, plus a nice bonus for myself.
But our technical referent....... Goddammit. PhD in computer science, and he probably. approved our project outline. 3 days in development, the basic features of the applications are there for him to see (yay. Agile.), and guess what? We need to change the user roles hierarchy we had agreed on. Oh, and that shouldn't be treated as extra development, it's obviously a bug! Also, these features he never talked about and never have been in the project? That's also a bug! That thing I couldn't start working on before yesterday because I was still waiting the specs from him? It should've been ready a week ago, it's a bug that it's not there! Also, he notes how he could've developes it within 40 minutes and offered to sens us the code to implement directly in our application, or he may even do so himself.... Ah, I forgot to say, he has no idea on what language we are developing the app. He said he didn't care many times so far.
But the best part? Yesterday he signales an outstanding bug: some data has been changed without anyone interacting. It was a bug! And it was costing them moneeeeey (on a dev server)! Ok, let's dig in, it may really be a bug this time, I did update the code and... Wait, what? Someone actually did update a new file? ...Oh my Anubis. HE did replace the file a few minutes before and tried to make it look like a bug! ..May as well double check. So, 15 minutes later I answer to his e-mail, saying that 4 files have been compromised by a user account with admin privileges (not mentioning I knee it was him)... And 3 minutes later he answered me. It was a message full of anger, saying (oh Lord) it was a bug! If a user can upload a new file, it's the application's fault for not blocking him (except, users ARE supposed to upload files, and admins have been requestes to be able to circumvent any kind of restriction)! Then he added how lucky I was, becausw "the issue resolved itself and the data was back, and we shouldn't waste any more yime.on thos". Let's check the logs again.... It'a true! HE UPLOADED THE ORIGINAL FILES BACK! He... He has no idea that logs do exist? A fucking PhD in computer science? He still believes no one knows it was him....... But... Why did he do that? It couldn't have been a mistake. Was he trying to troll me? Or... Or is he really that dense?
I was laughing my ass of there. But there's more! He actually phones my boss (who knew what had happened) to insult me! And to threaten not dwell on that issue anymore because "it's making them lose money". We were both speechless....
There's no way he's a PhD. Yet it's a legit piece of paper the one he has. Funny thing is, he actually manages to launch a couple of sort-of-nationally-popular webservices, and takes every opportunity to remember us how he built them from scratch and so he know what he's saying... But digging through google, you can easily find how he actually outsurced the development to Chinese companies while he "watched over their work" until he bought the code
Wait... Big ego, a decent amount of money... I'm starting to guess how he got his PhD. I also get why he's a "freelance consultant" and none of the place he worked for ever hired him again (couldn't even cover his own tracks)....
But I can't get his definition of "bug".
If it doesn't work as intended, it's a bug (ok)
If something he never communicated is not implemented, it's a bug (what.)
If development has been slowed because he failed to provide specs, it's a bug (uh?)
If he changes his own mind and wants to change a process, it's a bug it doesn't already work that way (ffs.)
If he doesn't understand or like something, it's a bug (i hopw he dies by sonic diarrhoea)
I'm just glad my boss isn't falling for him... If anything, we have enough info to accuse him of sabotage and delaying my work....
Ah, right. He also didn't get how to publish our application we needes access to the server he wantes us to deploy it on. Also, he doesn't understand why we have acces to the app's database and admin users created on the webapp don't. These are bugs (seriously his own words). Outstanding ones.
Just..... Ffs.
Also, sorry for the typos.5 -
Hm, missed a bit this pile of sociopaths here on devRant.
Last few weeks:
I repeat myself, this shouldn't be hard.
Working on it for 5 mins.
O h m y g o d.
Quite nothing the past weeks worked like intended, people and management have been a complete desaster and the weather is killing me.
Cheers.
Oh. And my request to get an benzo perfursor and a sexy manly nurse was denied by my team colleague handling hardware management.
-.- He said me being in a good mood is the last missing sign that the apocalypse is happening.
Yeah. Shit is burning everywhere. We're e.g. getting hardware delivered by a supplier who said that the request *was* canceled (after 3 months...) Two days phoning back and forth, they don't understand how it was possible but we can keep the hardware. Yay. Except that we completely redid the whole planning a week before. Naaaayy....
And now I will do the best I can: get drunk.
Cheers.