PPP Daemons and protocol routers TCP/IP and fast system booters Long network cables like tincans on strings These are a few of the internet things Serial modems and null-modem cables Millions of DIP-switches, all without labels Flow control, stop bits, software and hard Wondering why your connection is barred INN, CNEWS, nntp servers slurp to collect it (do we really deserve this?) Route it to demon, cross fingers and pray This is what happens most every day. Internal subnets, with bridges and routers Protocol stacks on dos/windows computers Flaky net configs that break on a whim Leaving the packets stuffed into a SIMM FTP proxies and webfile homepages Clueless mac users in mad crazy rages Protocol packets that stop for their tea Leaving me wondering where the hell they can be. HTML specs and world wide web rootfiles POP3, SMTP, DNS bootfiles MMDF and the sendmail config Why is the mail spool direct'ry so big? When the POP dies! When the line drops! When I'm feeling stress... I simply start playing with my network configs, And get into a much... worse mess. Clueless MAC lusers who cant find their files Packed pointless printqueues that go on for miles Dodgy DEC diskdrives that walk 'cross the floor Causing the NFS suite to dump core When the lusers ring! When the pager beeps! And at 3am they call. I simply recall I'm the BOFH And rm -r ... them all. -Steve, who is actually having a fairly good day.
And that, as they say, is that.