Cool !
This happened to me a few months ago:
CST is for customer. This guy is supposed to be the IT expert for this customer, he is responsible for the maintenance of their servers.
CST : Hello?
ME : Can I help you?
CST: Yeah ... the site isn't working, there's no map and the list that shows our vehicles is not appearing.
ME: OK, let me log in and see it for myself.
(I log in and really there's no list, and the map isn't loading. So I try to log in to their mysql database, and receive the message "connection failed".)
ME : Sir ... your mysql database is out.
CST: What?
ME: Your mysql database is out.
CST: What do you mean?
ME : Our webserver can't connect to your database server. Something's wrong with your mysql server.
CST: But I'm logged in to the server right now, it's up.
ME: Is it in front of you?
CST: No, all our servers are located in the Data Center.
ME: Ok. Try restarting the mysql service.
CST: What?
ME: The mysql service, try restarting it.
CST: Look, the map isn't showing, there's obviously something wrong with your side of the system.
ME: Sir, the map window is not loading because there's nothing to show, our server can't get the list of vehicles to show. It needs to connect with your database, in order to know WHAT to show.
CST: I don't understand.
ME: There are two servers. Ours ... and yours. Our server is the webserver, and it contains the map platform. But all the vehicle positions, their descriptions, who they belong to ... that's all in YOUR database. And our server needs to connect to your server.
CST: Oh, I think somebody changed the IP addresses over here, let me check.
( ... I wait 5 minutes )
CST: Yeah ... somebody over here changed the IPs.
ME: Great. Tell me what the new IP is and I'll change it over here.
CST: Its xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
ME: Ok. I'll try to connect from my computer.
CST: Ok.
ME: Not working.
CST: I dont understand, I gave you the right IP, it's in front of me, right now.
ME: Are you logged on to the server?
CST: Yes.
ME: Type "ifconfig".
CST: Where?
ME: In your terminal.
CST: What terminal?
ME: hmm ... where are you seeing the server's IP address?
CST: I went into control panel, network, tcp/ip properties ...
ME: No no no, that's the IP address of YOUR computer.
CST: So?
ME: I need the IP address of your database server.
CST: How can I get that, then?
ME: Well, if you are logged into it, your SSH client program surely knows the IP. Tell me what it is.
CST: Oh ... wait.
( I wait for another 5 minutes )
CST: Yeah ... the server's IP didn't change.
ME: Fine, just log into it and restart the mysql service.
CST: Ooooh, now I get it.
ME: Can you log into the server from your desktop?
CST: I'm logged into it.
ME: Fine. Restart the mysql service.
CST: OK.
( I then hear the Windows XP "logging out" theme over the phone )
ME: What did you just do?
CST: Restarted.
ME: Restarted what?
CST: I clicked "Start", then "Turn Off", then "Restart".
ME (containing my laughs) : You restarted YOUR computer !!
CST: What?
...
...
A few days after that, a problem on their server's network card was found.
|