[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

[alt.sysadmin.recovery] Re: clue[manager] == 0

------- Start of forwarded message -------
From: [email protected] (Patrick Gosling)
Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery
Subject: Re: clue[manager] == 0
Date: 29 Aug 1997 17:11:34 GMT
Organization: Cambridge University Engineering Department, UK
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
References: <[email protected]>

In article <[email protected]>,
Tim Cutts <[email protected]> wrote:
>Phone rings.  The luser on the other end is one of the central
>administrative people.
>
>Luser:  Hi Tim, you're in charge of the Internet aren't you?

In a previous existence (not my current place, which is infinitely more
clueful), the single most common error report was "the network's down":

Diagnosis:
a) their pc or mac is off
b) their monitor is off
c) their pc or mac has crashed
d) they've disconnected a random cable and/or power lead from the back
   of their pc, mac, or monitor.
e) they've pulled the bnc t-piece off the back of the machine
f) they've pulled part of the thin-wire out of the t-piece at the back
   of their machine
g) someone else has pulled part of the thin-wire out of the ...
h) someone else has decided that putting a twenty meter thin-wire 
   extension to their machine by attaching it to an existing run via
   a t-piece is a good idea.
i) one of the departmental electricians has sorted out a wiring problem
   by pulling all the black cables out of the way (one of them was 
   apparently observed to snap a thin-wire cable using this technique).
j) I've been investigating network problems, picked up a t-piece, and
   one of the attached bits of thinwire has dropped out of its connector.
k) their mail-reading app crashed
l) their news-reading app crashed
m) their web-browser crashed
n) one of the many repeater's holding the department thin-wire into 
   a vaguely working state has blown another port (something to do with
   the multi-kilometer runs of cable my predecessor had installed - he
   seemed to have a hangup about ring topologies, so thinwire would go
   down one side of a very long corridor, round the end, up the other
   side *and then bend back on itself and run all the way back over the
   path it had taken* - machines would be attached randomly to either one
   of the wires going through any given office).
o) the dept. mail-server has crashed
p) the dept. mail-server is grinding to a halt under the influence of
   one of the more exploratory-minded fortran programmers
q) the dept. mail-server is grinding to a halt because a colleague
   "accidentally" set a find going in the root directory of a remote 
   machine that it exported filesystems to. 
r) the dept. mail-server has overheated because someone thought the 
   airconditioner in there was for people's comfort rather than the
   computers and felt it was a bit chilly in the machine room when he
   popped in.
s) the network connection to the central university router is down.
t) the university router is down.
u) the university router is up, but a link to another department or to
   the outside world is down
v) the UK<->US link is slow
w) the UK<->US link is down
x) the particular remote machine they were trying to talk to is slow.
y) the particular remote machine they were trying to talk to is down.
z) the remote site they were trying to talk to is slow.
1) the remote site they were trying to talk to is down.
2) the individual they thought should surely have read and replied to
   the email they sent a week or two ago, hasn't bothered.
3) there's nothing wrong, but they want somebody to chat to.
4) they've deleted all their mail, by carefully selecting it all, hitting
   the delete button, and then confirming, but deny they did anything "and
   then it all vanished".
5) the fuse box at the end of the corridor is emitting smoke and large
   blue sparks, and their monitors have all switched to 120V mode just
   before the power temporarily restored itself (a joyful experience
   that merkins probably don't get ...)

The above is a very incomplete list ...

ObRecovery: just under ten miles in 72 minutes yesterday evening ...

-patrick.

------- End of forwarded message -------
===
This message was sent to mph-humor.  No guarantees of actual humor are
provided.  Archives and instructions for subscribing or unsubscribing
are available from http://mph124.rh.psu.edu/~hunt/humor .