Orca isn't just a killer whale anymore....

Since I run the Perl Mailing list Database I, on occasion, receive some pretty interesting submissions. Peter Prymmer sent in the orca-users list the other day which is a discussion list for Orca. I've spent the last few days tinkering with Orca since I use the SEToolkit on Solaris quite a lot and I've been having a blast. This is what open software should be like. The tarball has everything you need other than the SEToolkit and you just configure, make and go...it works right out of the box. I'm exceedingly impressed and I feel like buying something for him off of his Amazon Wishlist and note he has that spendy ORA P2P manual listed :) The comments are hilarious too as there are a couple of girly items listed and he has "For my Wife!!!" just so you don't think for a minute he's interested in fashion or anything like that :)

I know quite a few people have been complaining about the performance of search.cpan.org so I decided to put Orca and perlcollator on gargoyle since it is the one that is having the network trouble. After tuning the tcp stack there remains an abnormally high percentage of tcp rexmits which, to the end user, translates to sluggish performance. Since this is an EUltra1/170 with 64-bit Solaris it should be cranking through the packets with vigor instead of an anquished trickle. I just traded a few bits of hardware with a friend to obtain a spare, known working sbus hme card for the box should it come to that as there are really only 3 possibilities left; 1) tcp stack is munged...unlikely 2) hme is b0rked...more likely 3) network problem farther up the pipe...most likely. So, hopefully these performance graphs will help the network admin who hosts this box maybe look around and either confirm or deny this suspicion so we can then move on to replacing the network interface. It's not an easy thing to start picking on the free bandwidth unless you know there is a problem as generosity quickly fades once the warm fuzzy feedback runs dry and is replaced with whining.The rest of the server looks like it's in good shape to handle the load once the network aspect starts behaving.

And today I was reminded of a show that was playing on the Strand in London at the same time as YAPC::London, Puppetry of the Penis. Sadly, we didn't go to see it since Jarkko didn't really want to watch a couple of guys play with their twig 'n berries and I didn't want to seem too much of a perv by going alone and cackling in the back row. But, today, someone who shall remain nameless forwarded me an email:

"BUY PUPPETRY OF THE PENIS - THE UNIQUE AND OUTRAGEOUS HIT LIVE SHOW NOW OUT ON VIDEO AND DVD"

Excellent, now I can be a cackling perv in the privacy of my own home!

And...for all the people old enough to remember SCSI...:) Dr. Fun.