Saturday, October 27, 2007

IPv6 for Raccoon

We've recently set up an external server at LayeredTech to provide us with a remote DNS server, secondary MX, etc. I've got no complaints about LayeredTech — thus far they've been great. But earlier this week I decided I wanted something they couldn't provide.

All our core services on campus are IPv6-enabled, including hippo.ru.ac.za which provides an IPv6 CCTLD for about seven countries. So naturally we wanted to IPv6-enable the machine at LayeredTech. For one thing it'd help us with testing. More importantly, however, we believe it is the right thing to be doing on the current Internet.

Despite reading on their support forums that LayeredTech had no immediate plans for supporting IPv6, I noticed that they'd got a LIR allocation from ARIN. A little hopeful, I e-mailed LayeredTech's help-desk. They confirmed that IPv6 is work-in-progress, but isn't yet available to their customers.

All isn't lost though. The good folks at SixXS provide free IPv6 tunnels for people in our sort of situation. So I went through their (reasonably painless) registration process and now have a tunnel ending at OCCAID. It's not exactly what I wanted (i.e. native IPv6), but it's perfectly adequate for the sort of testing I want to do.

If anyone's in the same boat as us, I recommend SixXS.

posted by guy at: 16:58 SAST | path: /systems | permanent link

Saturday, October 13, 2007

Apple & The Core Group

About six months ago we placed an order for a Mac Mini and OS X Server with the South African distributor for Apple's products, Core Group.

We didn't thing this was a particularly complicated order, and we expected it to be delivered in a couple of weeks. The Mac Mini arrived about a month after we ordered it but, to date, we haven't received our copy of OS X Server. Six months to ship a DVD? I think not.

We've tried emailing the Core Group. No reply. We've tried phoning the Core Group. We end up on hold for a long time, only to be told the person we need to speak to is out. On the odd occasion when we do get someone who'll listen, we're promised the situation will be resolved this week.

I'm now distinctly fed up. We've had a machine sitting in our data centre for six months that we've yet to use because we don't have the software for it. Staff on our campus wonder why we don't support Apple's products -- this is why. The South African distributors suck. Yes, Google, the Core Group sucks.

I spent this afternoon searching Apple's website for a complaints department, or a distributor contact, or someone I could get hold of and complain to. It appears they've got this information well hidden.

So if anyone knows who I can bitch at at Apple, please let me know ...

UPDATE 2007/12/12: Two hundred and twenty-nine days ...
... since I placed and order with the Core Group and still no f@$%ing DVD.

UPDATE 2008/02/08: It finally arrived!!!
I've got a Leopard Server DVD. Last week Thursday if I want to be accurate about it. I eventually got particularly fed up and e-mailed everyone I could find, from the marketing manager for EMEA to their PROATIA contacts. Things started moving quite quickly after that, considering it was Christmas. Of course, it'd be nice if the Software Update Server in OS X Server worked. But that's a different issue ;-)

posted by guy at: 16:51 SAST | path: /issues | permanent link