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i love this. A startup I was at during early COVID times got acquired into Hewlett Packard Enterprise, so we all became HPE employees with HPE addresses. Th

i love this. A startup I was at during early COVID times got acquired into Hewlett Packard Enterprise, so we all became HPE employees with HPE addresses. There was a similar form there to request "ryancnelson"@hpe, etc... One of my co-workers got cute and asked for "root@hpe.com" .... And boy, there's a lot of cron jobs running at HP.

ferguess_k 1y ago
Or something like "ab-production@company.com", where ab is whatever a mage system.
williamdclt 1y ago
I’m confused why cron jobs would be sending emails to root@hpe.com?
- ecnahc515 1y ago
  Cronjobs often run as root. If the host has is configured to send emails when a cronjob is completed it will default to sending it to user@domain where the user is the user the cronjob runs as, and the domain is what was configured in the cron configuration.
  - dijit 1y ago
    Minor nitpicky correction: cron only sends an email if there's any stdout of the job. This is an important distinction because if you have configured mail forwarding, your cron jobs should be configured to output only on error.. then any emails are actionable.
    - threePointFive 1y ago
      Moreutils has a great command `chronic` which is a wrapper command like `time` or `sudo`, ie. you just run `chronic <command>`. It'll supress stdout and stderr until the command exits at which point it will print only if the exit code was non-zero.
      - stevekemp 1y ago
        I copied the same idea in my static collection of sysadmin utilities: https://github.com/skx/sysbox/ https://github.com/skx/sysbox/
- sph 1y ago
  IIRC cron writes stdout to the local mail spool (<user>@localhost). If the server is configured correctly, with an SMTP service for the domain, these emails are basically forwarded to <user>@<domain> In practice, I have never seen a Linux server with an actual SMTP server configured correctly in 20 years, so the worst that usually happens is that cronjobs never actually leave the machine. You used to get a mail notification when you logged in if cron had written something, but that doesn’t happen anymore on recent distros.
  - lgeorget 1y ago
    It's usually configured correctly at some point in time and then the configuration "rots": it becomes inconsistent, some emails are forwarded, other are lost, nobody cares, etc. In my case, I configured Postfix to redirect all mails looking like (root|admin|postmaster)@server to myemailaddress+(root|admin|postmaster)_server@domain and Postfix ignores what comes after the + in the user part. So I get all the emails but I still know where they come from. It has worked well for quite some years now but I'm not deluding myself, I know that at some time, that will rot too.
  - axpvms 1y ago
    Lots of domains have a locahost record set up. I used to think it was funny to use them for email forms when entering an email was required and the email validation would accept them. eg: to set the email to root@localhost.uu.net for example.
- tuyiown 1y ago
  (not an unix sysadmin, just guessing what happened from my shaky knowledge) cron jobs reports activity by email to the user (UID) they are running, historically UNIX boxes have the ability to handle mail locally (people would leave messages to each other by connecting to the same server via terminal), so that the root cron activity would land into the root (/root) account mbox file. When email got interconnected more across servers, generally the service that would dispatch mail to the users account on their home folder on the server started to be able to forward to to others servers, if a domain name was provided. Add to it the ability to fallback to a _default_ domain name for sending email into the organization, and voilà, the root email account for the default domain name receives the entirety of the cron jobs running under root of all the servers running with the default configuration and domain fallback.
  - layer8 1y ago
    If you ever come across a ~/dead.letter file, that's one way it can be misconfigured. ;)
- onei 1y ago
  If you want emails from some random internal machine, you can use one of the HPE SMTP servers. There was one for internal email, another for external iirc although I'm not sure there was a difference in practice. Those SMTP servers would do a DNS lookup before accepting the email. When I set this sort of thing up, I'd get myself a hostname on an internal subdomain. But that was a truly miserable experience. It was a multi-stage form submission on a server I imagine to be the closest possible relation to an actual potato. It was soul-destroyingly slow. Alternatively, you could just pretend your machine was hpe.com - the hostname was valid, even if the IP was totally wrong, and the SMTP server would accept it. My guess is that there was a bunch of stuff that pre-dated the HP/HPE split and they took the quick and dirty option whenever the old internal domain name got yanked during the changeover. And if your process runs as root, you get root@hpe.com and hope there's something in the subject/body to identify the specific machine.
bigfatkitten 1y ago
In the late 90s I worked for a now defunct Australian electronics retailer, who were also a well-known AS/400 shop. Our stock reports etc would come via email from qsecofr@<domain>.com.au. The QSECOFR (Security Officer) user is effectively root on OS/400. I would've thought they would run these jobs as some other user, but apparently not.
- jamesfinlayson 1y ago
  Dick Smith?
  - jll29 1y ago
    Reminds me of that public speaker announcement asking (in American English) a Mr. Peter File to please report to the service desk. (Not from "Brazil" the film, but Monty Python-originating regardless.)
    - FabHK 1y ago
      The IT Crowd, S02E04. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8n9xraFoNI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8n9xraFoNI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSJ8XPnJK1o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSJ8XPnJK1o
jrockway 1y ago
They must have learned from your experience. When we were acquired by HPE they did not let us choose and our director of engineering got an email address that misspelled his name... fixing it involved him being locked out of all systems while the people trying to fix it emailed someone else with a similar name about it. His advice for other team members in the same spot was "if you don't like your email address, do not attempt to fix it." HPE was truly a trip. I paid $2000 to be able to disparage them online and it was worth every penny.
- knotimpressed 1y ago
  What were the details of paying $2000?
  - jkingsman 1y ago
    Not the commenter, but I would assume forgoing an exit bonus/severance payment that was contingent upon signing a non-disparagement agreement.
    - jrockway 1y ago
      Yup exactly. I got my retention bonus and 2 months pay and all that stuff without agreeing to anything, and they offered a little bit more to agree not to disparage them. I'm pretty chatty so decided it wasn't worth it ;)
      - fragmede 1y ago
        Question is, how many zeros would it take to convince you otherwise.
        jrockway 1y ago
        Some number, absolutely. I don't have that much integrity ;)
        DonHopkins 1y ago
bryanrasmussen 1y ago
this reminds me when I was at a course from a big software company in the late 90s, and we had problems setting up the system at first because some executive in Germany had named his machine localhost.
- MortyWaves 1y ago
  How was that mess ever fixed?
  - bryanrasmussen 1y ago
    I guess they contacted the executive and had them change the name? on edit: I do remember we had to come back to the course the next day, so it took a day to get it fixed.
atulatul 1y ago
Was the co-worker called Newman? I read the last sentence 'And boy, there's a lot of cron jobs running at HP.' in Newman's voice: From the Seinfeld episode The Diplomat's Club: "I took over his route. And boy, were there a lot of dogs on that route."
stfods 1y ago
Ah, I remember this feature, somewhere within Directory services setup. I have successfully obtained -.-@hp.com and a few more similar weird email addresses. Sometimes back is 2006 or 2007

ferguess_k 1y ago

Or something like "ab-production@company.com", where ab is whatever a mage system.

williamdclt 1y ago

I’m confused why cron jobs would be sending emails to root@hpe.com?

ecnahc515 1y ago
Cronjobs often run as root. If the host has is configured to send emails when a cronjob is completed it will default to sending it to user@domain where the user is the user the cronjob runs as, and the domain is what was configured in the cron configuration.
- dijit 1y ago
  Minor nitpicky correction: cron only sends an email if there's any stdout of the job. This is an important distinction because if you have configured mail forwarding, your cron jobs should be configured to output only on error.. then any emails are actionable.
  - threePointFive 1y ago
    Moreutils has a great command `chronic` which is a wrapper command like `time` or `sudo`, ie. you just run `chronic <command>`. It'll supress stdout and stderr until the command exits at which point it will print only if the exit code was non-zero.
    - stevekemp 1y ago
      I copied the same idea in my static collection of sysadmin utilities: https://github.com/skx/sysbox/ https://github.com/skx/sysbox/
sph 1y ago
IIRC cron writes stdout to the local mail spool (<user>@localhost). If the server is configured correctly, with an SMTP service for the domain, these emails are basically forwarded to <user>@<domain> In practice, I have never seen a Linux server with an actual SMTP server configured correctly in 20 years, so the worst that usually happens is that cronjobs never actually leave the machine. You used to get a mail notification when you logged in if cron had written something, but that doesn’t happen anymore on recent distros.
- lgeorget 1y ago
  It's usually configured correctly at some point in time and then the configuration "rots": it becomes inconsistent, some emails are forwarded, other are lost, nobody cares, etc. In my case, I configured Postfix to redirect all mails looking like (root|admin|postmaster)@server to myemailaddress+(root|admin|postmaster)_server@domain and Postfix ignores what comes after the + in the user part. So I get all the emails but I still know where they come from. It has worked well for quite some years now but I'm not deluding myself, I know that at some time, that will rot too.
- axpvms 1y ago
  Lots of domains have a locahost record set up. I used to think it was funny to use them for email forms when entering an email was required and the email validation would accept them. eg: to set the email to root@localhost.uu.net for example.
tuyiown 1y ago
(not an unix sysadmin, just guessing what happened from my shaky knowledge) cron jobs reports activity by email to the user (UID) they are running, historically UNIX boxes have the ability to handle mail locally (people would leave messages to each other by connecting to the same server via terminal), so that the root cron activity would land into the root (/root) account mbox file. When email got interconnected more across servers, generally the service that would dispatch mail to the users account on their home folder on the server started to be able to forward to to others servers, if a domain name was provided. Add to it the ability to fallback to a _default_ domain name for sending email into the organization, and voilà, the root email account for the default domain name receives the entirety of the cron jobs running under root of all the servers running with the default configuration and domain fallback.
- layer8 1y ago
  If you ever come across a ~/dead.letter file, that's one way it can be misconfigured. ;)
onei 1y ago
If you want emails from some random internal machine, you can use one of the HPE SMTP servers. There was one for internal email, another for external iirc although I'm not sure there was a difference in practice. Those SMTP servers would do a DNS lookup before accepting the email. When I set this sort of thing up, I'd get myself a hostname on an internal subdomain. But that was a truly miserable experience. It was a multi-stage form submission on a server I imagine to be the closest possible relation to an actual potato. It was soul-destroyingly slow. Alternatively, you could just pretend your machine was hpe.com - the hostname was valid, even if the IP was totally wrong, and the SMTP server would accept it. My guess is that there was a bunch of stuff that pre-dated the HP/HPE split and they took the quick and dirty option whenever the old internal domain name got yanked during the changeover. And if your process runs as root, you get root@hpe.com and hope there's something in the subject/body to identify the specific machine.

bigfatkitten 1y ago

In the late 90s I worked for a now defunct Australian electronics retailer, who were also a well-known AS/400 shop. Our stock reports etc would come via email from qsecofr@<domain>.com.au. The QSECOFR (Security Officer) user is effectively root on OS/400. I would've thought they would run these jobs as some other user, but apparently not.

jamesfinlayson 1y ago
Dick Smith?
- jll29 1y ago
  Reminds me of that public speaker announcement asking (in American English) a Mr. Peter File to please report to the service desk. (Not from "Brazil" the film, but Monty Python-originating regardless.)
  - FabHK 1y ago
    The IT Crowd, S02E04. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8n9xraFoNI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8n9xraFoNI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSJ8XPnJK1o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSJ8XPnJK1o

jrockway 1y ago

They must have learned from your experience. When we were acquired by HPE they did not let us choose and our director of engineering got an email address that misspelled his name... fixing it involved him being locked out of all systems while the people trying to fix it emailed someone else with a similar name about it. His advice for other team members in the same spot was "if you don't like your email address, do not attempt to fix it." HPE was truly a trip. I paid $2000 to be able to disparage them online and it was worth every penny.

knotimpressed 1y ago
What were the details of paying $2000?
- jkingsman 1y ago
  Not the commenter, but I would assume forgoing an exit bonus/severance payment that was contingent upon signing a non-disparagement agreement.
  - jrockway 1y ago
    Yup exactly. I got my retention bonus and 2 months pay and all that stuff without agreeing to anything, and they offered a little bit more to agree not to disparage them. I'm pretty chatty so decided it wasn't worth it ;)
    - fragmede 1y ago
      Question is, how many zeros would it take to convince you otherwise.
      - jrockway 1y ago
        Some number, absolutely. I don't have that much integrity ;)
      - DonHopkins 1y ago

bryanrasmussen 1y ago

this reminds me when I was at a course from a big software company in the late 90s, and we had problems setting up the system at first because some executive in Germany had named his machine localhost.

MortyWaves 1y ago
How was that mess ever fixed?
- bryanrasmussen 1y ago
  I guess they contacted the executive and had them change the name? on edit: I do remember we had to come back to the course the next day, so it took a day to get it fixed.

atulatul 1y ago

Was the co-worker called Newman? I read the last sentence 'And boy, there's a lot of cron jobs running at HP.' in Newman's voice: From the Seinfeld episode The Diplomat's Club: "I took over his route. And boy, were there a lot of dogs on that route."

stfods 1y ago

Ah, I remember this feature, somewhere within Directory services setup. I have successfully obtained -.-@hp.com and a few more similar weird email addresses. Sometimes back is 2006 or 2007