We now return to our original problem
News ·Tuesday March 13, 2007 @ 22:06 EDT (link)
A few weeks back I had some trouble RASing (remotely connecting) into work; when it started, I could connect to the VPN but not login to my machines. When I got to IT support, though (escalated to tier 2, eventually), the problem was worse: I couldn't even connect to the VPN: the client, IT Connection Manager (CM), just kept counting. No logs or diagnoses, or course; it's a Windows program, written by incompetents. Naturally I mess around with tcpdump on the Gentoo Linux NAT server (and windump on the Windows XP client), determine it's using PPTP, read the RFC, but don't see anything wrong to start with. It doesn't help that CM keeps on requiring reboots (not obviously, but it gets wedged so that it stops working even if directly connected to the Internet). Eventually I figure out that the NAT box is translating the incoming CLIENT_ID but not the outgoing one, so I switch off translation (it's really only required for multiple clients inside the firewall) and it now connects again.
My second problem was that OWA kept giving me 500 Internal Server Error whenever I tried to login, but eventually I figured out that I needed to use a different server. Entirely non-obvious from a one-line error; such cases should be caught.
So now we're back to the third problem, that I can't terminal serve to my machines. I suspect it's a certificates issue, but who knows; Windows is severely opaque. I'll tell y'all what the problem was if and when IT manages to fix it.
I was home today since both roads to Redmond (124th Street and Woodinville-Duvall) had flooded, which gave me the time to do the aforementioned diagnosis work.
After the "adds/cuts" meeting Friday/Monday, both Word 14 features that I'm interested in are still alive: server and collaboration. I'm still not sure which I'm most interested in, especially as politics enters into it too (e.g. perhaps one group is friendlier, or has less senior people in it which means a better chance to do interesting work). Ah, yes, politics: when features make the world go around (and the employees move up), it's a barroom brawl behind polite smiles.
Construction is scheduled to begin on the trusses and roof this week, starting Thursday. We've contacted our mortgage company and they've received our paperwork and should be sending back the check in a few days.
We'll be flying in to visit the family in August, thanks to my Uncle Murray (he's paying for us to fly up for his daughter's wedding), probably staying for a couple of weeks, perhaps going on a camping trip with the family for a few days.
