The Electromagnetic Networks Notworking Kit

11/27/02: For immediate release
Keywords: suckful misdesigned cthulhu

Do you spend an inordinate amount of unpaid time in vain attempts to make your LAN suck slightly less? Do you never know when your mail server will be inaccessible for no good reason? Is your ISP too good for your mickey-mouse operation? Then you need the Electromagnetic Networks Notworking Kit! Why bother with equipment that ought to work and simply refuses to when you can use cheaper crap that is broken as designed? Remember, networks are useless; not working networks are even more useless!

Our engineers have spent untold hours of highly skilled effort in an attempt to make the Electromagnetic Networks network do anything more than use up way too much electricity. What's more, they haven't even tried to get paid overtime for these efforts! This is not out of some sort of altruism, but because they have had nothing whatsoever to show for their efforts, and until now, didn't think that even their amazing powers of persuasion (often utilizing blunt objects) could make Accounting pay overtime for the failures.

The mere fact that you can read this press release is a small miracle, brought about only by the advent of an incredible variety of networking kit that Electromagnetic Networks happens to have lying around. If you want to replicate this marvel on your network, the recipe is simplicity itself. Since there is nothing worse than getting paged in the middle of the night and having no idea why the network isn't working, you might as well make your life simpler and know precisely why everything doesn't work: because no merciful god could allow such a mishmash of hardware to interoperate.

A crucial component of the Electromagnetic Networks Notworking Kit is "dumb" networking equipment that chooses the most inopportune moments to exhibit bursts of "smarts," thereby encouraging the Operations crew to consider lucrative careers in the field of yak herding.

With a bare minimum of further ado, here is the Electromagnetic Networks complete Notworking Kit. Normally, we would be selling this information as part of a highly lucrative consulting contract, but this horror is of such magnitude that even our normally avaricious engineers have realized that such an act would, amazingly enough, besmirch the already tawdry reputation of Electromagnetic Networks as a consulting entity (and possibly cause any number of lawsuits for negligence).

Take one 100 megabit switch, and ensure that it is completely incapable of autonegotiating a 10 megabit link on any port. For maximal success, we suggest the 3Com SuperStack II line of switches, since they not only use a VT100 GUI to configure, guaranteeing that your 9600 baud console will spend the maximum amount of time refreshing, but also cheerfully tell you that your port speed choices are 100 megabit half duplex and 100 megabit full duplex.

Add a handful of brand-X switches, of varying port density. Ensure that they are not in the slighest manner rack mountable, and require DC power delivered via a huge wall wart that consumes as much space on your UPS as possible. We use D-Link switches here at Electromagnetic Networks, and add to the fun by cross-connecting our router to the one switch with a dodgy power connection. (This last extra twist of unreliability is probably due to dropping the switch on the floor repeatedly while trying to sit it on top of the rack.)

To round out your switching fabric, we suggest a minimum of two 10 megabit only switches, to complement the 100 megabit only switch you acquired in step 1. Make sure that you get these from a failed startup for maximal lack of accountability and warranty, and further, demand that the password to configure them be totally unavailable, the original maintainer having been fired in an early round of layoffs. SMC TigerSwitches are highly thought of for this purpose, since the password cannot be reset without sending it back to the factory.

Once you have planned out the physical infrastructure, let the fun begin by tossing routers into the mix. Try to standardize on the series of routers you get, since this will make the quirks and peccadilloes of each router all the more mysterious. At Electromagnetic Networks, we have standardized on Cisco 2500 series routers, save only for — you knew there must be an exception, right? Good to see that you're paying attention — a single 1005, which we use to throw at would-be burglars. Now that you've limited yourself (more or less) to the single series of your choice, make sure that each router is as different from the previous as possible.

How about an example?: What about a 2501 (with IOS 11.2 on the ROM) to provide basic connectivity, a 2509 to serve as In-Band Out-Of-Band (IBOOB) (with IOS 10 on ROM), and a 2524 (with 11.0) tossed in to replace the 2501 (so that an external CSU/DSU is not required)? This has many subtle kinks to make life that much more interesting. For example, most IOS images before about 11.3 or so cannot understand the novelty that is classless IP, so when your router reloads, it will be unable to understand the configuration until after it loads and decompresses yet another image. As a bonus, the 2500s generally cannot hold enough flash to store a modern IOS, so you'll need all the fun of downloading a new image (into the upgraded parity RAM SIMM that you had to scavenge) before uplink can be reëstablished. (Again, make sure the router is in the switch with the bad power supply, so that when the defective parity RAM crashes the router, it is never quite certain as to whether or not a fully functional IOS can be downloaded.) As a special treat, your IBOOB ought to send break every time it reloads, just to provide a little love kiss to your Solaris (and even Linux) boxes on the network. Finally, since 2500s don't have fast ethernet, you'll need to make sure that although the faster switch is physically close to all of your critical equipment for speed, the generic switch must also be around to provide a crossconnect for two pieces of equipment. (This, of course, is why the 100 megabit only switch is so important.)

Into this not-yet-bloodcurdling mix, toss a wireless access point made on the cheap by a company that refuses to acknowledge the existance of any OS other than Windows. D-Link is again especially helpful, providing a configuration program that cannot be shut down, refuses to configure the same AP more than once ever (since after the first configuration, the IP address assigned to the AP is mysteriously in use, and the program lacks the brains to examine the ARP table and deduce why), and as a final insult, calls the unclosable main window "TestDLL." In fact, make sure that whichever vendor you choose provides a helpful configuration "wizard" that only seems capable of setting its own ass on fire when it "casts" a "spell." (D-Link's, for example, forgets everything you've ever told it at the drop of a packet, including such information as the IP information of the computer it is running on, or the obviously totally unrelated IP of the new AP.)

To digress, wouldn't it be a novelty if there were some way a program running on a computer could ascertain the answers to such deep unknowns as the network configuration of the host? To be fair, not every computer is on a network, but hypothetically speaking, were one to be configuring an access point, thereby providing some sort of connectivity, perhaps this connectivity might be onto some sort of existing infrastructure, rather than into thin air. Alas, such a marvel of programmatic ingenuity must be beyond the designers of any operating system made in the last ten years. Maybe one day, in this amazing 21st century that we live in, computers will be able to help humans with such knotty problems, perhaps even by performing some sort of complex operation to determine bookkeeping information, so that a human will not be required to waste brain cells on numbers not intended for any sort of use directly by said human.

Now that this touch of insecurity has been added, start colocating systems for allied networks. For extended pleasure, make sure that you don't have the root password to any of the colocated boxes, posted AUP be damned, and try to make sure that they are running disruptive services, such as a DHCP daemon that engages in protracted arguments with yours, misconfiguring any box naïve enough to try to autoconfigure as an undocumented favor to you, the purchaser. Remember that wireless AP you got? Or the replacement router? An especially enjoyable sensation is experienced when you watch them gleefully behave as badly as possible and try to self-configure, rather than deign to let you type in the correct IP address. Not that we're bitter.

The crowning touch in the Electromagnetic Networks Notworking Kit is simplicity itself. Allow your server room to become the untamed monster of cable-snarling ferociousness every machine room dreams of being when it grows up. Soon, despite hours spent sorting and rearranging, it will spontaneously recoalesce into knots of power, ethernet, and the occasional HSSI cable. [The importance of a switch that turns off when you dare to look at it cannot be underestimated. Such an amazing addition to the network can convert a fifteen second cable swap into a forty-five minute cable-tracing extravaganza, and can even spur future doomed maintanance windows!]

If you already know the joy of a non-working network, then this product is not for you. Otherwise, by all means, give the Notworking Kit a try! It can make even the most boring remote troubleshooting an experience without compare, as you try to deduce whether A) the server crashed, B) the IBOOB crashed, C) the switch crashed, or D) the rack fell over. [Correct answer: we have no idea. The last time we were downstairs, one of our servers tried to eat us.]

Under normal, more potentially profitable circumstances, our engineers would have created a preassembled Notworking Kit for purchase by the public, as a core component of the Electromagnetic Networks .NOT Development Kit. Unfortunately, the engineers threw the only existing prototype against the wall until every part of it was in fragments no larger than what could be passed off as a healthy breakfast cereal. [What happened after that is too awful to relate, since the engineers' hatred of cereals, and even the combination of the two letters "A" & "M", is stuff of legend.]

Undaunted, the salesman that the engineers drafted to try to reverse the cash flow of Electromagnetic Networks was able to put a new spin on the entire matter, and he proposed a plan the formation of a new top-level domain, ".not". This TLD would be solely for networks powered by the Electromagnetic Networks Notworking Kit. Since anyone thinking that this was a good idea was obviously on the receiving end of one too many jolts of wall current (or "do not disturb juice," as the engineers call it), he was promptly fired.

Finally, the Notworking Kit has been released to the public free of charge. Our only hope is that it will cause such disruption in our competitors machine rooms (or our competitor's business plans, should our consulting business ever get underway) that we will be able to corner whatever market we finally enter, and thereby ensure world domination. Please be sure to let us know if you're planning on using the Notworking Kit at your current place of employ.

Comments on this Document
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Peccadilloes
by Psiburhonky v9.25 () on 12/06/2002 at 08:46 (#1)
Peccadilloes.
I am glad you used this word.
These make both a nice topping on ice cream and a part of a healthy breakfast. Also good for cleaning windshield wipers and what to call Germans with crooked beards.

Scaled down kit?
by hawklord2112 () on 02/20/2003 at 04:49 (#2)
hi folks, i've realised that the Notworking kit can be replicated in a server-side single machine network with a minimal expense purchase. the application of 3-4 clue-by-fours will mirror the effects without utilising any cable!
maybe this could be retailed as a wireless Notworking kit?

Scaled down kit?
by hawklord2112 () on 02/20/2003 at 04:50 (#3)
hi folks, i've realised that the Notworking kit can be replicated in a server-side single machine network with a minimal expense purchase. the application of 3-4 clue-by-fours will mirror the effects without utilising any cable!
maybe this could be retailed as a wireless Notworking kit?

Still not working after all these years.
by Pasta Man () on 05/23/2008 at 16:19 (#10)
Just banging on the comment stuff.