Prepping for an interview on Friday hopefully allowing me to get away from where I work now!

Just finishing off agreeing and signing a new job! Exciting news

Watching the British Inbetweeners, drinking Cobra, looking forward to asking GFs dad tomorrow over dinner and beers for permission to propose to his daughter. Fun fun.

Hi folks,

This position is based in London, Camden, UK. If anybody in UK/London knows anybody that could be interested feel free to have them message me. Probably good for somebody interested in training/law, or a recent graduate within law.

Location – Camden Town, London. Salary, £24k pre probation, £26k post probation. 20 days holiday plus bank holidays. Hours: 9am - 5:30pm with 1 hour lunch.

Company

We are a London based legal technology company specialising in the development and distribution of digital research platforms involving case law and legislation. Our partners and clients include law professionals in over 50 countries, including law firms, governments and academic institutions. With the recent release of a brand-new product we are looking for talented individuals to join our company at a very exciting time.

The Role

As a Training Executive you are a high achiever, with a passion for training, technology and the law and have joined our team based in Camden Town, London.

Your role will primarily focus on, but not be limited to:

• Organising, improving and performing customer training
• Planning and running online sessions for existing and potential customers
• Working and improving the customer helpdesk and becoming an expert on our platforms

Training is performed online and in person therefore national and international travel is required.

We track performance through a range of KPIs including, but not limited to:

• Customer feedback
• Helpdesk response time
• The volume of training booked and performed

This role is office based in Camden Town, Monday to Friday, 9am – 5:30pm with flexibility and travel required.

Key Attributes

Candidates should be:
• Confident in dealing and liaising with a variety of customers
• A strong and confident presenter
• Able to meet and exceed targets
• Able to work well within a tight knit team
• Efficient with their time management skills
• Able to communicate professionally, both written and verbally
• Able and eager to learn
• Familiar with MS Office

Any questions, feel free...

Best,
Jim

For real, if 55k is similar to what you make now, and the benefits are the same, but the drive is 4x longer, and you don't need to move jobs... Pass. Nope. Not for you. Working g for an MSP sucks imo.

"Dear xyz,
Thank you for the offer of 55k. I appreciate your offer but must decline. I am comfortable in my current role; to entice me to leave a comfortable job with a far longer commute I would need a fair increase in wages and benefits. I'd reconsider for 65k and 10% bonus, private healthcare and life insurance, and x days leave per year.

I'd be very excited to work with you but the finances must be financially viable. Sadly, 55k does not meet that requirement for me.

If you can reconsider I'd look forward to agreeing a contract. Otherwise I wish you luck in your search."

Boom.

Applied to a job earlier today and just had an email confirming an interview. The interview details say the format is an online meeting where I sit in front of a webcam and answer automated questions which may be reviewed later... and is scheduled for 2h 40m minimum... PASS... too impersonal to me.

From those, option 2.

Laughing my ass off at red tape. Get a project. Reach out to specific vendors and get get the pricing and options. List four good options, with a #1 recommendation suitable for us. Get together with the C levels, and get it shot down as 'C' levels want to verify what we actually need from the options (which I did already). C levels spend several weeks in meetings, internally, externally... and come back with the exact same #1 recommendation. Pfft.

I've only worked SMB. I'd like to try Enterprise some day but worry everything would be too impersonal. With SMB, some of them have been like a family. Real nice. I've worked some that were truly nasty though - I'd go SMB, but move until the right SMB is found.

Wow. Poor. Feel sorry for anybody applying.
"I want a performer! Not someone watching the clock!" - that says it all. Bad first impression!

^ it goes with saying they no doubt want somebody to work above their normal hours too all the time, be always contactable, never take holiday and be willing to only be paid peanuts.

Turned down a job offer with a finance company. Better pay and benefits but I just did not feel excited for the position. Couldn't bring my self to sign the employment contract.

@scottalanmiller said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@jimmy9008 said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@scottalanmiller said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@jimmy9008 said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

Stressing over a work decision where I have no information to make a decision.

And you are stuck with the decision because....?

The folk above me are fighting over control of various parts of the IT department. I've been told the teams are being broken up and moved to different areas of the larger business. There will be two IT areas - and I've been asked which I want to go to. But, I've not been told what I will be doing for either. I don't know what the job will entail, the results I need to provide, what I need to perform or the technology I'll be using, who the team are, if I will be managing and leading a team like I do now, none of it.

So, I am being asked to pretty much flip a coin as I know nothing about each role on either side. How can they ask me which I want to take without any data to make that choice. Hence, stressing about it.

Go to the US, this is the time to go. Huge shortage of workers. People will actually fight over you.

I'm working for a US company remotely from the UK. I would like to visit the US, but not live. I think I've decided which route to take now though based on one reason. My current boss will be moving to side 1, and he is sometimes like a micromanager, so I'm going to take my chances with side 2, which I know nothing about. Worst case, job hunt.

@scottalanmiller said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@jimmy9008 said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

Stressing over a work decision where I have no information to make a decision.

And you are stuck with the decision because....?

The folk above me are fighting over control of various parts of the IT department. I've been told the teams are being broken up and moved to different areas of the larger business. There will be two IT areas - and I've been asked which I want to go to. But, I've not been told what I will be doing for either. I don't know what the job will entail, the results I need to provide, what I need to perform or the technology I'll be using, who the team are, if I will be managing and leading a team like I do now, none of it.

So, I am being asked to pretty much flip a coin as I know nothing about each role on either side. How can they ask me which I want to take without any data to make that choice. Hence, stressing about it.

Stressing over a work decision where I have no information to make a decision.

@pete-s said in Vagrant/DHCP problem:

@jimmy9008 said in Vagrant/DHCP problem:

@pete-s said in Vagrant/DHCP problem:

@jimmy9008 said in Vagrant/DHCP problem:

Hi folks,

Long post...

So, we have a DevOps colleague who has setup automation with Vagrant to one of our Hyper-V hosts. I am not familiar Vagrant at all, but the allows his code to build VMs on one of our Hyper-V hosts. I am trying to rule out DHCP being the issue.

Most of the time the VMs are made successfully and get a DHCP address. Every once in a while, one of the automated VM fail to get a DHCP IP (well, they actually don't). (from being generated new)

We setup Wireshark to capture traffic for one of these failed events. When this fails I can see:

1 - the broadcast from the mac of the VM asking for any DHCP servers on the subnet
2 - the DHCP offer with the MAC of the client and the IP available
3 - the actual DHCP request from the client MAC with the IP which is available from step 2
4 - the DHCP Ack from the DHCP server confirming allocation complete

I have checked the DHCP server and can see the record. Correct IP, MAC, and a machine name. Now, at this point I believe the entire flow has been successful. Now, this is where it goes wrong.

I connect to his VM in Hyper-V and login with the password he gave and type ipconfig /all
I get no IP, no subnet, but I do see DHCP = Yes, Gateway and DNS servers. I now type 'hostname', and the hostname is different to what is in DHCP!

What I suspect:

1. Vagrant makes the machine, it boots, gets an IP and is written to DHCP
2. At some point, the code written gets the VM to change its host name and the VM reboots
3. The VM (with its new name) asks DHCP server for the same IP
4. DHCP server refuses as the hostname does not match the IP in its records
5. Vagrant VM is left in a stage having no IP

Does this sound reasonable? I assumed if this were the case though that the DHCP server would send a NACK or something refusing the IP renewal/request, but do not see the traffic in Wireshark.

If I restart the VM or do ipconfig /renew, it does get the correct IP, and DHCP updates with the new name of the machine.
This once in a while happens to his Linux VM and his Windows Server VM which are made via Vagrant, leading me to believe the issue is Vagrant.

The fact DHCP has a record of the IP, Name and MAC of the host before name change makes me think the issue is with Vagrant/his code rather than DHCP server.

Cheers

You might be confused by the hostname without it being a problem.

Normally it's the DHCP client that tells the server it's hostname in the DHCPREQUEST package.

So the hostname is set in the OS during installation and it's communicated to the DHCP server. The DHCP server stores this information in it's lease table. The hostname and IP can then be communicated from the DHCP server to DNS as well.

But it's also possible for the DHCP client to change the OS hostname based on a hostname the DHCP server sends - usually when having static DHCP reservations.

It's however not a requirement for the dhcp client to sends its hostname to the dhcp server and it's not a requirement that the dhcp client changes the hostname based on the hostname the DHCP server provided either. These are options that can be enabled or not.

Whatever the setup is, you can have the hostname inside the VM and the hostname on DHCP/DNS be different without anything being wrong.

I think you're on the right track using wireshark to figure out what is happening. I would have a close look on the MAC addresses to see what VM is doing what.

I don't know Vagrant but I don't see any reason for the DHCP server to supply a hostname to the VM when Vagrant is perfectly capable of setting the VMs hostname itself.

I would have a look at the DHCP server settings. Are you for instance using static reservations and are you setting hostnames from the DHCP server?

Sorry. I wrote a lot. The DHCP server is not controlling the hostname of the client VM in any way.
What I meant was vagrant creates a VM with a vNIC, and a hostname called say 'vagrant-123', it boots, gets DHCP successfully, talks to the vagrant server/control/source (I'm not sure how that works). That orchestration 'thing' rolls out whatever is needed to the VM, then changes its name to say 'DevEnv15'.
Changing its host name makes it reboot. At that point, it sometimes no longer has its DHCP address. DHCP lists the original name.

Upon ipconfig renew, the VM gets its IP back.

Okay. Well, if you have a standard dhcp server and are not using static reservations, then the hostname has no influence on dhcp. It's the MAC address that determines what IP you are given.

If you want to check for the same VM doing several attempts at dhcp you should look for the same MAC address in wireshark. It highly unlikely that Vagrant changes the mac address after the VM has been created.

Funny enough, this environment is on its own dedicated vLAN with its own dedicated DHCP server. The DHCP server, Vagrant System, and the VMs that are created, are all on the same Hyper-V host.

Understood regarding name. We can drop that as it sounds like a red herring. From the Wireshark logs, I can see the entire DHCP request which shows as working successfully. When the built VM reboots following a name change (although the name change is a red herring), there are no follow up requests from the VM to the DHCP server. Upon rebooting, should the VM poll the DHCP server to see if the IP that was assigned moments ago is still available? Or, as the lease is longer will the VM just use it as it still has a lease?

Either way, the fact ipconfig shows the correct DNS servers shows me that the first attempt worked prior to restart, otherwise the DNS settings would be blank because that is given via DHCP. So, the problem looks to be the Vagrant VM losing or not holding the DHCP IP and Subnet in its config upon restart - once in a while...

@pete-s said in Vagrant/DHCP problem:

@jimmy9008 said in Vagrant/DHCP problem:

Hi folks,

Long post...

So, we have a DevOps colleague who has setup automation with Vagrant to one of our Hyper-V hosts. I am not familiar Vagrant at all, but the allows his code to build VMs on one of our Hyper-V hosts. I am trying to rule out DHCP being the issue.

Most of the time the VMs are made successfully and get a DHCP address. Every once in a while, one of the automated VM fail to get a DHCP IP (well, they actually don't). (from being generated new)

We setup Wireshark to capture traffic for one of these failed events. When this fails I can see:

1 - the broadcast from the mac of the VM asking for any DHCP servers on the subnet
2 - the DHCP offer with the MAC of the client and the IP available
3 - the actual DHCP request from the client MAC with the IP which is available from step 2
4 - the DHCP Ack from the DHCP server confirming allocation complete

I have checked the DHCP server and can see the record. Correct IP, MAC, and a machine name. Now, at this point I believe the entire flow has been successful. Now, this is where it goes wrong.

I connect to his VM in Hyper-V and login with the password he gave and type ipconfig /all
I get no IP, no subnet, but I do see DHCP = Yes, Gateway and DNS servers. I now type 'hostname', and the hostname is different to what is in DHCP!

What I suspect:

1. Vagrant makes the machine, it boots, gets an IP and is written to DHCP
2. At some point, the code written gets the VM to change its host name and the VM reboots
3. The VM (with its new name) asks DHCP server for the same IP
4. DHCP server refuses as the hostname does not match the IP in its records
5. Vagrant VM is left in a stage having no IP

Does this sound reasonable? I assumed if this were the case though that the DHCP server would send a NACK or something refusing the IP renewal/request, but do not see the traffic in Wireshark.

If I restart the VM or do ipconfig /renew, it does get the correct IP, and DHCP updates with the new name of the machine.
This once in a while happens to his Linux VM and his Windows Server VM which are made via Vagrant, leading me to believe the issue is Vagrant.

The fact DHCP has a record of the IP, Name and MAC of the host before name change makes me think the issue is with Vagrant/his code rather than DHCP server.

Cheers

You might be confused by the hostname without it being a problem.

Normally it's the DHCP client that tells the server it's hostname in the DHCPREQUEST package.

So the hostname is set in the OS during installation and it's communicated to the DHCP server. The DHCP server stores this information in it's lease table. The hostname and IP can then be communicated from the DHCP server to DNS as well.

But it's also possible for the DHCP client to change the OS hostname based on a hostname the DHCP server sends - usually when having static DHCP reservations.

It's however not a requirement for the dhcp client to sends its hostname to the dhcp server and it's not a requirement that the dhcp client changes the hostname based on the hostname the DHCP server provided either. These are options that can be enabled or not.

Whatever the setup is, you can have the hostname inside the VM and the hostname on DHCP/DNS be different without anything being wrong.

I think you're on the right track using wireshark to figure out what is happening. I would have a close look on the MAC addresses to see what VM is doing what.

I don't know Vagrant but I don't see any reason for the DHCP server to supply a hostname to the VM when Vagrant is perfectly capable of setting the VMs hostname itself.

I would have a look at the DHCP server settings. Are you for instance using static reservations and are you setting hostnames from the DHCP server?

Sorry. I wrote a lot. The DHCP server is not controlling the hostname of the client VM in any way.
What I meant was vagrant creates a VM with a vNIC, and a hostname called say 'vagrant-123', it boots, gets DHCP successfully, talks to the vagrant server/control/source (I'm not sure how that works). That orchestration 'thing' rolls out whatever is needed to the VM, then changes its name to say 'DevEnv15'.
Changing its host name makes it reboot. At that point, it sometimes no longer has its DHCP address. DHCP lists the original name.

Upon ipconfig renew, the VM gets its IP back.

@dafyre said in Vagrant/DHCP problem:

@jimmy9008 Is this happening wiht a Windows VM or Linux?

If Windows, edit the base VM and go to the registry:

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Service\tcpip\Parameters

Add a D-Word entry by the name of "ArpRetryCount" and set the value to 0.

That will help the DHCP issue.

Both. Randomly. Maybe 1 in 50/100 runs.

@stacksofplates said in Vagrant/DHCP problem:

Just for understanding, why Vagrant on the remote machine and not Terraform? Vagrant in my experience had been for local dev. Not saying it doesn't work and I thought I saw recently about remote systems with Vagrant, but terraform would most likely work much better.

Interesting question. I actually am not sure. The host and VM are development hardware. The tool made by the Devops guy is to spin up development environments of our various software we make, so assume that's why he uses vagrant. I do not know specifically though as I'm not in the development team.

Hi folks,

Long post...

So, we have a DevOps colleague who has setup automation with Vagrant to one of our Hyper-V hosts. I am not familiar Vagrant at all, but the allows his code to build VMs on one of our Hyper-V hosts. I am trying to rule out DHCP being the issue.

Most of the time the VMs are made successfully and get a DHCP address. Every once in a while, one of the automated VM fail to get a DHCP IP (well, they actually don't). (from being generated new)

We setup Wireshark to capture traffic for one of these failed events. When this fails I can see:

1 - the broadcast from the mac of the VM asking for any DHCP servers on the subnet
2 - the DHCP offer with the MAC of the client and the IP available
3 - the actual DHCP request from the client MAC with the IP which is available from step 2
4 - the DHCP Ack from the DHCP server confirming allocation complete

I have checked the DHCP server and can see the record. Correct IP, MAC, and a machine name. Now, at this point I believe the entire flow has been successful. Now, this is where it goes wrong.

I connect to his VM in Hyper-V and login with the password he gave and type ipconfig /all
I get no IP, no subnet, but I do see DHCP = Yes, Gateway and DNS servers. I now type 'hostname', and the hostname is different to what is in DHCP!

What I suspect:

1. Vagrant makes the machine, it boots, gets an IP and is written to DHCP
2. At some point, the code written gets the VM to change its host name and the VM reboots
3. The VM (with its new name) asks DHCP server for the same IP
4. DHCP server refuses as the hostname does not match the IP in its records
5. Vagrant VM is left in a stage having no IP

Does this sound reasonable? I assumed if this were the case though that the DHCP server would send a NACK or something refusing the IP renewal/request, but do not see the traffic in Wireshark.

If I restart the VM or do ipconfig /renew, it does get the correct IP, and DHCP updates with the new name of the machine.
This once in a while happens to his Linux VM and his Windows Server VM which are made via Vagrant, leading me to believe the issue is Vagrant.

The fact DHCP has a record of the IP, Name and MAC of the host before name change makes me think the issue is with Vagrant/his code rather than DHCP server.

Cheers

Laughing my ass off at red tape. Get a project. Reach out to specific vendors and get get the pricing and options. List four good options, with a #1 recommendation suitable for us. Get together with the C levels, and get it shot down as 'C' levels want to verify what we actually need from the options (which I did already). C levels spend several weeks in meetings, internally, externally... and come back with the exact same #1 recommendation. Pfft.