Psychotomy

What is it around here with people wanting to fix things that aren’t broken? Solutions to problems that don’t exist, and we’ll ignore the ones that do b/c they don’t fit our plan!

Been working with VMWare, trying to clone live servers so we can do proper (read: destructive) and accurate (read: where the same environment is ACTUALLY the same environment instead of an environment that shares similiar letters) testing on development products. It’s not actually on my “job duties list,” but since THAT list includes “MySQL Database Administrator” and I have access to user accounts b/c someone else gave me a list of passwords and i’m not ALLOWED to have admin access to the database (let alone any say in their administration), I decided to spend some time on my Security processes.

And between security and development testing, meaningful environments seemed a good overlap :o So, this week I managed to clone my desktop into a virtual machine running on my desktop (it’s the only system I have available to me for massive abuse at the office). Haven’t tested the networking, but I managed to get it to boot finally, and since I really don’t care about my desktop being virtualized onto my desktop (ow), I’m done with that thought experiment.

From there, I’m moving on to trying to clone a server. Security boss comes by (boss may be the wrong term, but he’s the guy what calls the meeting so whatever) to let me know that he wanted to meet with me in the next few weeks to try to bring me up to speed on some things. I mention that i’m working on the VMWare thing and I’ve managed to clone my desktop. “we’re not going to do desktops” … right, anyway? i’m going to work on getting a server cloned next … “we dont’ do that on desktop” yes, but it’s what i have …

“we want a system that’s got the approved configuration and has been hardened …blah blah” uh, i was CLONING a server into a virtual. with the exception of a few driver changes to work with the virtual hardware, and an IP change to work wit hthe virtual network … it should be as approved and hardened as the real one, dude! c’mon! then he tells me there are programs that can be used to make those clones (rather than my poormans mechanisms) … then he talks about how they let you swap OS’s something something … i think he’s talking about a virtual boot loader now

these? THESE ARE NOT PROBLEMS I HAVE! oi. *sigh*

Posted in: work by attriel /