@jaredbusch said in Resume Critique:

@jimmy9008 said in Resume Critique:

Expand on your points. What has consolidation provided to the business? What else have you setup? I'm sure going from 'N' aged servers to 'X' new hosts under support, has helped improve performance and reliability? Have you a second host with Hyper-V replica in place? Mention that...

None of that should be mentioned on the resume. that is detail stuff that you discuss in an interview.

From all my experience, at least here in the UK, leaving such things out put you in the bin pile, before even getting you to the position to discuss those things. The CV says 'Hyper-V', so what... If it doesn't give any actual details it's just a word anybody could have copied and pasted. Details are key.

Change the top. The table is horrible.

Don't stress over the Hyper-V stuff. Even if you consolidated one physical server over to a Hyper-V server that was already running, you've still consolidated that server.

Expand on your points. What has consolidation provided to the business? What else have you setup? I'm sure going from 'N' aged servers to 'X' new hosts under support, has helped improve performance and reliability? Have you a second host with Hyper-V replica in place? Mention that...

@dashrender said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

Man, totally dead around here this morning.

Yep

@scottalanmiller said in Ubuntu/shred?:

@jimmy9008 said in Ubuntu/shred?:

@scottalanmiller said in Ubuntu/shred?:

@jimmy9008 said in Ubuntu/shred?:

@scottalanmiller said in Ubuntu/shred?:

I'm pretty late here... zeros is not faster because the speed is determined by the drive, not the system. The system can create content or just put zeroes all faster than the drive can write them to disk.

I read that as the CPU doesn't have to 'think' of the random data, its faster, as its only doing 0's. That processing to generate the random data is skipped - though, like I said... I don't really know about shred etc hence asking

Right, and my point was that the CPU was not the bottleneck, so that the CPU has to do "less" doesn't change the speed of the process. Someone is assuming that this is 1980 and that disks are faster than CPUs

Ok, makes sense. No dates on the stuff I was reading online.

So, either way, would a zero of the entire array, then moving the disks between servers after already using array utility to destroy the array and make a raid 0... would that be pretty safe?

Decently safe, short of people going to forensic lengths to get a little data from the machine, there is nothing there.

Ta

@scottalanmiller said in Ubuntu/shred?:

@jimmy9008 said in Ubuntu/shred?:

@scottalanmiller said in Ubuntu/shred?:

I'm pretty late here... zeros is not faster because the speed is determined by the drive, not the system. The system can create content or just put zeroes all faster than the drive can write them to disk.

I read that as the CPU doesn't have to 'think' of the random data, its faster, as its only doing 0's. That processing to generate the random data is skipped - though, like I said... I don't really know about shred etc hence asking

Right, and my point was that the CPU was not the bottleneck, so that the CPU has to do "less" doesn't change the speed of the process. Someone is assuming that this is 1980 and that disks are faster than CPUs

Ok, makes sense. No dates on the stuff I was reading online.

So, either way, would a zero of the entire array, then moving the disks between servers after already using array utility to destroy the array and make a raid 0... would that be pretty safe?

@scottalanmiller said in Ubuntu/shred?:

I'm pretty late here... zeros is not faster because the speed is determined by the drive, not the system. The system can create content or just put zeroes all faster than the drive can write them to disk.

I read that as the CPU doesn't have to 'think' of the random data, its faster, as its only doing 0's. That processing to generate the random data is skipped - though, like I said... I don't really know about shred etc hence asking

@tim_g said in Hyper V replica VS DFS:

@jimmy9008 said in Hyper V replica VS DFS:

@tim_g said in Hyper V replica VS DFS:

@jimmy9008 said in Hyper V replica VS DFS:

Also remember, replica/DFS is not a backup. This is useful if you are using it for some sort of DR, but its not a backup (just saying in case this was for a backup).

It can be used as hardware redundancy and to speed up file access in remote locations.

Yes, it has many uses. But my point was its not a backup. So, wanted to make sure this wasn't in place for a backup.

Good call! He did mention a secondary offsite server... but never mentioned the reason. Could be for backup?

My thoughts exactly. Hence saying what I said

If using replica from A -> B, and if they think its a backup.... just wait for the VM on A to get ransomware... and bad times as yep - B also has the locked files.

Hyper-V Replica is not a backup. Its a DR type thing. DFS is not a backup, its a file distribution system.

@tim_g said in Hyper V replica VS DFS:

@jimmy9008 said in Hyper V replica VS DFS:

Also remember, replica/DFS is not a backup. This is useful if you are using it for some sort of DR, but its not a backup (just saying in case this was for a backup).

It can be used as hardware redundancy and to speed up file access in remote locations.

Yes, it has many uses. But my point was its not a backup. So, wanted to make sure this wasn't in place for a backup.

Have you setup WSUS for updates? Using GPO to roll out the policy to the clients? Get that on.

Why did you move to 2012 domain? Ware the systems before that out of MS support and insecure? So you... actually improved security as the systems etc are now being updated and patched? Hmmm, perhaps. Perhaps not. Say why you went to 2012...

Any automation? Or what about backu management/testing of restores. Did you setup DR? Get that on?

I personally don't like the large name at the top. Though, that's just my own opinion.

For Windows, add 2008 & 2008 R2; lets face is - if you know 2016, 2012 & 2012 R2, you will be absolutely fine with 2008 R2 & 2008.

Reduced telecommunication costs by 50%, from what to what?

That 2012 domain, did it include new server hardware? What did you use, Hyper-V? vSAN? Failover Cluster? Stick those project details in. The new domain and servers have improved what? Add metrics of some sort (new domain, servers, lines etc, took us from a 99.98% service availability to 99.995% availability securing x additional y per year in z...

Maintained software compliance... cool. But did you also do things like find ways to spend less on software? Add that in...

You used spice works for ticketing, but what about network/infrastructure monitoring?
'I setup PRTG Monitor to track system availability, errors/logs/ updates etc... improving overall performance of abc...

I've always liked to see at the top of a CV a couple of lines on hat you want next. Aka, 'I am actively looking for my next challenge focusing on virtualisation and storage.' It tells me where you want to go straight away...

What about things you are currently learning? Powershell? VMWare? Studying another cert? Get it on the CV... it will be flagged and you get in the pile to check.

@dashrender said in Ubuntu/shred?:

@jimmy9008 said in Ubuntu/shred?:

@dashrender said in Ubuntu/shred?:

@marcinozga said in Ubuntu/shred?:

@dashrender said in Ubuntu/shred?:

@marcinozga said in Ubuntu/shred?:

Then just make sure complete set of disks from any server doesn't end up in one school. Schools don't have the budgets/personnel/skills/time/motivation to play the NSA.

But kids in a lab do.

And since when kids in labs are allowed to sit there for hours swapping disks between servers?

That's not the point, or even required. They could pull images off the drives, then mess with the data like putting paper shreddings back together if they wanted to.

My point is that when there is a will, there is a way. And you hear stories all the time about how some kid some some completely unexpected thing in school - so I would expect no less to be possible here.

Yep, agree. But by doing what I've done, its pretty safe. So, I am happy with that.

Cool - as for your format commands - why did you put the drives back into an array? Leave them all separate, and write zeros to each one independently. Also, zeros along won't protect your data. True random data is the only way to really get there, and even then, only with multiple passes. But a single track of zeros gives an attacker knowledge of what they are trying to look past, i.e. your track of zeros. By using random data, the attacker has more work to find what the previous magnetic field was.

Added into one array as that just made sense at the time. From the array utility, destroy the array. Then create new array raid 0 of all disks. (Just made sense). Lol.

I thought that random was great, but you are pretty much unlikely to pull anything off of the drives once zeroed... (especially if the disks were moved too), which I can still do.

@dashrender said in Ubuntu/shred?:

@marcinozga said in Ubuntu/shred?:

@dashrender said in Ubuntu/shred?:

@marcinozga said in Ubuntu/shred?:

Then just make sure complete set of disks from any server doesn't end up in one school. Schools don't have the budgets/personnel/skills/time/motivation to play the NSA.

But kids in a lab do.

And since when kids in labs are allowed to sit there for hours swapping disks between servers?

That's not the point, or even required. They could pull images off the drives, then mess with the data like putting paper shreddings back together if they wanted to.

My point is that when there is a will, there is a way. And you hear stories all the time about how some kid some some completely unexpected thing in school - so I would expect no less to be possible here.

Yep, agree. But by doing what I've done, its pretty safe. So, I am happy with that.

Eurgh... even the 0's on the array are taking ages. Been running it since lunch, 40 GiB/3.7TiB finished, 1%

@marcinozga said in Ubuntu/shred?:

@jimmy9008 said in Ubuntu/shred?:

@marcinozga said in Ubuntu/shred?:

If drives are identical in all servers, why don't you just randomly mix them? Pull drive 2 from server 1 and swap it with drive 4 from server 2, etc. Then just destroy the arrays, create new, preferably different RAID levels and just write some sample data.

Wouldn't this leave quite a risk of the data being on a drive still?
I have mixed the drives. Destroyed the arrays, and set as Raid0. Then, running shred on those new Raid 0 arrays...

Risk? Unlikely. If you mix few drives from each array in few servers, there's no way to recover it unless you get the original set of drives together. The more drives and servers, the lower the chances of re-assembling the array. You're not donating these to NSA, are you?

No, lol. Two servers are going to a School to be their production environment. Another server is going to a different School to be a lab machine so students can try virtualisation.

@marcinozga said in Ubuntu/shred?:

@gjacobse said in Ubuntu/shred?:

@jimmy9008 said in Ubuntu/shred?:

@gjacobse said in Ubuntu/shred?:

@jimmy9008 said in Ubuntu/shred?:

@gjacobse said in Ubuntu/shred?:

Nothing wrong with doing a multi pass as well... I have heard of people going so far as to create a 'dumb text' file of junk text and copying it to fill the drive, then doing the DBAN. Also - if it is a physical ARRAY - by killing it, you add another layer of obscurity...

I generally have just pulled drives and kept them. They are cheap and easy enough to replace, and can be found new, refurb or used...

We're donating with the drives, so will be wiping them to a reasonable standard.
Just trying to find out id one pass of 0's is actually a reasonable standard....

I would go multi pass with random data... single pass to me just isn't enough

That would take a long time. Its not data that's about customers, or patients or whatever, this is data that if found wouldn't cause an issue. Hence doing 'quick best effort'. Leaving the array doing multiple passes with random data for a week is just too long... but, if one pass of zeros is easy to get the data back, then I have no choice but to do random...

I look at it this way; I am no hacker, not a digital forensic specialist - but I have formatted SD cards from my digital camera, and been able to recover the images with nearly 98% error free recovery.

When it comes to digital storage - I don't like to chance things. I go extreme in some cases doing a full DoD wipe twice..

Single format doesn't destroy the data, you need to actually overwrite it.

Yes, that's what I believe I'm doing by the entre write of 0's on the entire array...
Sound pretty safe. So I will stick with it.

Also remember, replica/DFS is not a backup. This is useful if you are using it for some sort of DR, but its not a backup (just saying in case this was for a backup).

@gjacobse said in Ubuntu/shred?:

@jimmy9008 said in Ubuntu/shred?:

@gjacobse said in Ubuntu/shred?:

Nothing wrong with doing a multi pass as well... I have heard of people going so far as to create a 'dumb text' file of junk text and copying it to fill the drive, then doing the DBAN. Also - if it is a physical ARRAY - by killing it, you add another layer of obscurity...

I generally have just pulled drives and kept them. They are cheap and easy enough to replace, and can be found new, refurb or used...

We're donating with the drives, so will be wiping them to a reasonable standard.
Just trying to find out id one pass of 0's is actually a reasonable standard....

I would go multi pass with random data... single pass to me just isn't enough

That would take a long time. Its not data that's about customers, or patients or whatever, this is data that if found wouldn't cause an issue. Hence doing 'quick best effort'. Leaving the array doing multiple passes with random data for a week is just too long... but, if one pass of zeros is easy to get the data back, then I have no choice but to do random...

@dustinb3403 said in Ubuntu/shred?:

Why not follow up with gparted and do a complete format of the system afterwards?

How long would that format take? I presume it does the same as zeroing the drive anyway?

@gjacobse said in Ubuntu/shred?:

Nothing wrong with doing a multi pass as well... I have heard of people going so far as to create a 'dumb text' file of junk text and copying it to fill the drive, then doing the DBAN. Also - if it is a physical ARRAY - by killing it, you add another layer of obscurity...

I generally have just pulled drives and kept them. They are cheap and easy enough to replace, and can be found new, refurb or used...

We're donating with the drives, so will be wiping them to a reasonable standard.
Just trying to find out id one pass of 0's is actually a reasonable standard....

@marcinozga said in Ubuntu/shred?:

If drives are identical in all servers, why don't you just randomly mix them? Pull drive 2 from server 1 and swap it with drive 4 from server 2, etc. Then just destroy the arrays, create new, preferably different RAID levels and just write some sample data.

Wouldn't this leave quite a risk of the data being on a drive still?
I have mixed the drives. Destroyed the arrays, and set as Raid0. Then, running shred on those new Raid 0 arrays...