8th Layer Archive

« Sick as a dawg | 8th Layer Archive | 5 Things »

November 19, 2001

Where's That Script?

I don't know if any of you noticed, but our sites (mine and Tracy's) went down the other day. It happened right about midnight on Sat night. It has happened before and usually if you wait about 5 min, it's back up (probably a reboot thing). Well, this time it didn't come back up. So I put in a ticket for Tech Support.

Now, normally BellSouth (our ISP) sux and CQHost (our web host) is pretty good at a quick response from Tech Support. This time, I think it was family day there and they were letting their children answer the email support questions.

Being the out-of-work Network Engineer, naturally I had to investigate before I made a complaint. This is partly because I miss working and partly because if Tracy had gotten up in the middle of this and tried to check her site, I'd have to have some answers. "Why can't I get to my site?" I have to tell her exactly why this is happening and who's at fault. She has to be pretty specific in her head when she says, "the bastards!" So I did a little investigating.

I went to a few sites and checked my mail. Yup, our connectivity to the Internet is okay. So then I tried to get to the web interface for the management of our site. There are two ways to get there... One is using our domain + some other stuff ... and the other is through using http://www.cqhost.com/manager and signing in with our username and password. Usually when the server's down, it'll give us an error when we try to sign in. Since pings to www.crazytracy.com and www.artisticbluewolf.com timed out, the best bet was to use the host's manager interface. It gave me the error I expected. Okay...I gotta write tech support. Ping www.crazytracy.com .... request timed out. Ping www.cqhost.com .... response. Tracert www.crazytracy.com ... following the trace...looking good... no slowdowns anywhere... here's the gateway.... gw1000-sd01.cari.net [209.126.155.111] .... * * * .... here's the gateway again.... gw1000-sd01.cari.net [209.126.155.111] .... * * * ..... here's the gateway again .... gw1000-sd01.cari.net [209.126.155.111] .... * * * ....all the way to 30 hops. Hmmm... Tracert www.cqhost.com .... following the trace... looking good... no slowdowns anwhere... here's the gateway... gw1000-sd01.cari.net [209.126.155.111] ... there's the server... cqhost.com [209.126.146.4] ... Trace complete. Hmmm... There's a problem here...

So I write them:
******
Details:
Is the server down again? I can't get to my sites and when I go to the cqhost manager interface, it gives me an error when I try to log in with my domain...

ERROR! bad entry www.crazytracy.com

******
I figure I'll be as general as possible - I know the problem's on their end, but without knowing their entire setup, I can't be very specific. I can think of at least three different scenarios off the top of my head that could cause the problem. Last time I wrote them like that, the server was rebooted and within a few minutes, I was able to get to my site. I thought it would be the same this time.

Their response (6 hrs later):
******
Lori, Your request for support has been completed.

Details:
you may try http://www.crazytracy.com/siteadmin directly

Regards,
CQhost customer support
******

Okay...so now I'm pissed. They think I can't get there because I can't figure out the freaking URL. This pisses me off to no end since I'M THE ONE THAT READS ALL THE INTRODUCTORY EMAILS - from start to finish. If there was a URL provided (and there was in the welcome letter) you can be damn sure I'd see it and know about it. When I get *anything* from a cell phone to a new toaster - I read the user's manuals provided. Do you know anyone else who does that? Most people don't. Okay...perhaps they're trying to save face and cover whatever the hell happened. Maybe they're just saying that NOW you can get there directly. I'm still pissed because they haven't told me why the server was unreachable...

In a fit of fury, I update the ticket:
******
Updated 11-18-2001 15:41:17
This does NOT resolve my problem. THE SERVER WAS UNREACHABLE > could not ping www.crazytracy.com REQUEST TIMED OUT.

If I CANNOT reach http://www.crazytracy.com I MOST CERTAINLY cannot reach http://www.crazytracy.com/siteadmin >> WHICH IS WHY I USED http://www.cqhost.com/manager

At the time of the ticket, the server was unreachable. This is the second time (that we know of) that the server has been unavailable. What is causing this problem and what is being done to resolve it?

******

Okay...I'm being a bit more specific in my request for information. I know they did some upgrades (yes, I read their info updates at the manager screen once I was able to get there...). But those upgrades were a few days ago. It should not be the direct source of the problem.

Here's their response:
******
Lori, Your request for support has been completed.

Details:
Lori,
the server was not down (hawkeye). We have upgrade some equipments Wednesday/Thursday (scheduled maintenance) but you should not have any connection problem at this time.

a/ perhaps your dialup/dsl ISP had a problem to connect to our servers
b/ a proxy/firewall on your local network is blocking you.

if the problem persists, please give us a traceroute
( in windows: tracert yourdomain.com)

Try also to reach your server by typing crazytracy.cqhost.net instead of crazytracy.com to see if it is a problem with the domain name or a DNS issue in your area.
--

[root /]# ping crazytracy.com
PING crazytracy.com (209.126.145.191): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 209.126.145.191: icmp_seq=0 ttl=255 time=0.5 ms
64 bytes from 209.126.145.191: icmp_seq=1 ttl=255 time=0.4 ms
--

[root /]# nslookup crazytracy.com ns1.cqhost.com
Server: ns1.cqhost.com
Address: 209.126.146.108

Name: crazytracy.com
Address: 209.126.145.191

Regards,
CQhost customer support

******

Okay...so now they're blowing blue smoke up my skirt. I hate that. Apparently either

a/ they are REALLY reluctant to admit anything happened
b/ they don't even know they have a problem

Geez...I had no idea I would have to PROVE there was a problem after the fact... Well, I'm an out-of-work Network Engineer... I don't have any equipment to monitor - perhaps I should monitor their equipment for them? Hmmm... I remember a handy script I picked up along my travels. It's a simple batch file that does a trace to a few places on the Internet and writes the result to a log file. Wouldn't something like that come in handy right now? If it's running on the server itself that would make swiss cheese out of their "your ISP had a problem" theory AND their "firewall on the local network" theory. It would also eliminate any questions about "a DNS issue in your area" since it would be using THEIR DNS servers, THEIR hubs/switches, THEIR routers, THEIR server, and THEIR connectivity. It would also tell me if the server is going down or if their network equipment is going down (perhaps a switch/hub/router that connects the gateway to my server but does not connect the gateway to their server).

Okay...I know I have that script on a disk. Time to drag it out, modify it, and get it running. This should be interesting... (Read: actually, I'm excited that I have something like this to do...) I think while I'm at it, I should ftp a copy of the log file and pour through that too. I think they gave the wrong answer to the wrong person...

Posted by BlueWolf on November 19, 2001 03:58 PM