What do you use to back up local files from Linux to external hard drive?
I have been using rsnapshot, but maybe there are better solutions out there?
Does anyone have an experience with btrfs and snapshots? Do you trust it?
❓ Bei Fragen und Problemen rund ums digitale Forschungsdatenmanagement im Bereich des materiellen Erbes der Menschheitsgeschichte könnt ihr Euch ab jetzt an unser Support-Team via n4o-helpdesk@dainst.de wenden. Wir melden uns dann umgehend. 📨
Help Desk Workers: don’t just fix it. Help the customer/user understand:
what happened,
how to prevent it from happening again, and
how they might independently fix the problem if it does happen again.
(Unrelated side note: this tech support issue was resolved over Facebook Messenger. I have clients who contact me via telephone, email, SMS, FB Messenger, LinkedIn Direct Messages, Signal, and WhatsApp. If you do this for money, let your customers contact you any way they want to).
It seems that the server was broken for more then 24 hours and I wasn’t sure who to contact. So, who do we ask to reboot or fix the instance if its down?
Hey les personnes qui s’y connaissent en android STOCK sans store alternatif avec des applis du commun des mortels, est-ce qu’il y a un risque que bloquer adservice.google.com au niveau DNS ait des incidences sur l’utilisation d’android et du playstore?
Je re précise au cas où: je bloque à vue le premier libriste forceur qui va me dire d’installer f-droid ou je sais pas quel ROM à la con.
PS: j’accepte pas les commentaires « mais pourquoi tu dis ça si méchamment? »
Small Business Owner: “Bob, I’d like to add a firewall to my network.”
Me: “Okay, but we’ll also need to add at least one wireless access point.”
Small Business Owner: “Why?”
Me: “Because your cable modem’s Wi-Fi will be on the wrong side of the firewall.”
Small Business Owner: “What do you mean? You’re speaking English, but I have no idea what you said.”
Me: “Maybe this picture will help you visualize what I’m saying.”
Small Business Owner: “Okay, let’s have a look.”
Me: “In the new configuration, whether a device connects via Ethernet cable or Wi-Fi, they’re protected by the firewall.”
Disclaimer: The picture shows devices with familiar brand names. This is so that most people can quickly understand the devices and their relationship. No brand endorsement is intended.
I can troubleshoot problems from miles away in under ten seconds… (humor)
BACKGROUND
A long time ago I wrote a script for a client so they could make a backup of some financial spreadsheets. All they had to do was plug in a flash drive and double-click a shortcut on the desktop. Then they could take the flash drive with the spreadsheets and continue working from home.
THE SITUATION
It's Friday, December 22 – the last business day before Christmas. This client called me in the afternoon because they got an error message that the backup operation had failed.
“Well,” I said, “first things first. Did you plug in the USB drive?”
“Let me check.” [A few moments later]: “Oh, it was plugged in, but it must’ve gotten bumped. It was loose. Now I’ve plugged it all the way in, and I’ll try again. [pause] Hey, it worked!”
A client in another city called yesterday because their antimalware system was blocking websites. The error message said something like, “This site is blocked because it’s known to be malicious. Contact your Network Administrator.”
He called me and reported it, so I connected remotely to his computer to have a look.
Ah. The malware was doing redirects. No matter what you typed in the search block, the search took you to the malicious site that the antimalware was blocking. I did a simple web search for “frogs.” When I hit Enter, instead of showing me search results, I got the same blocking message.
(I often test with “frogs” because most people don’t search for frogs, and I want to do a search that doesn’t have anything in their browser cache already).
To fix it, I started by opening the antivirus to make sure none of the features had been disabled. It was fine.
Next, I did a quick perusal of the browser settings, paying close attention to browser extensions. The only thing there was Google Docs Offline, so that was fine. I also checked some other things, like History and Downloads, and I deleted cookies – AFTER telling the customer that he might have to re-enter information in some of his favorite websites, and getting his permission to delete the cookies.
Next stop: Task Manager. Nothing looked out of the ordinary there. All of the running processes were typical.
Since I couldn’t find an obvious culprit, I took the “nuclear option” and reset the browser. At that point, searches were normal and no antivirus messages about blocking sites appeared.
But we’re not done yet.
This morning I contacted the client again as a Customer Care follow-up to see if the malware had returned. The problem hasn’t reoccurred.
Okay, now we’re done.
As you probably know, sometimes there’s an installer that’s separate from the working malware. (Installer and Payload). You may easily remove the obvious malware, but it may get reinstalled later by some activity, such as opening a program or rebooting the computer. Local installers are often hidden fairly well. Sometimes the least expensive option is to wipe and reload, if you can’t find the installer fairly quickly.
I designed and taught a course at Bellevue College called “Advanced Desktop Support.” The outline for the quarter went something like this:
Determine: is it hardware or software? If there’s a hardware issue, fix it before checking for other issues.
Labs: hardware and software tools and tests to answer #1.
If there’s a software issue, determine: is it operating system or application? If there’s an operating system issue, fix it before checking for other issues.
Lab: slow operating system manifesting as an application problem.
Labs: software tools and tests to answer #2. Cover Task Manager and Event Viewer.
If there’s an operating system issue, determine: is it files or configuration? Repair corrupted or missing files before working on configuration.
Labs: software tools and tests to answer #3.
If there’s an application issue, determine: is it files or configuration? Repair corrupted or missing files before working on configuration.
Labs: troubleshoot corrupted file issues in Adobe Reader.
Labs: troubleshoot configuration issues in Microsoft Word and Outlook. Include Trust Center and Add-ins.
Problems with peripherals: is it the computer, the peripheral, or the connectivity?
Labs: troubleshoot drivers on the computer, troubleshoot peripheral hardware, troubleshoot peripheral configuration, troubleshoot connectivity. Order to be determined by symptoms. Labs should include printer, second monitor, and sound system with its own amplifier.
Remote testing and customer interaction were discussed throughout. Many labs involve working in teams of two, where one student is the “hands and eyes,” and the other student is Tech Support.
Section 1 was the shortest section, because CompTIA A+ was a prerequisite and we covered hardware troubleshooting pretty thoroughly there.
The longest part of Section 2 is becoming fluent with using Event Viewer.
Corrupted files were the shortest parts of Sections 3 and 4. In general, the solution is to reinstall. But cover licensing in this section, because you don’t want to inadvertently burn a second license with the reinstallation.
It was a good course, but we only ran it one year because it didn’t get very high enrollment.
If you think you can make it fly at your college, there’s the outline – modify it as you see fit and run with it.
HDMI woes... This week one of my clients complained that their second monitor on their laptop was blinking on and off. Periodically for no obvious reason the screen would go black, and then a moment later it would come back on. Sometimes it did it maybe once in an hour, and other times it would happen every few seconds. I went to their office and observed the problem. They had a 3 meter (about 10 feet) HDMI cable from some unknown manufacturer. I replaced it with a 2 meter cable rated for 8K video. I checked back with them a couple of days later, and the problem hasn't reoccurred.
This is not to say they had an 8K monitor, or that the HDMI port on their laptop was capable of 8K. The point is that cable quality matters, and cable length matters. Longer cables introduce more signal attenuation, and inferior cables cause both attenuation and waveform distortion. The newer 8K HDMI cables are backward compatible with (almost) all earlier iterations of HDMI, so that’s all I carry.
TROUBLESHOOTING TIP: It’s highly unlikely that a faulty HDMI cable will result in a poor quality display. The display is either there, or it’s not. In this client’s situation, the signal was borderline. It was either just above minimum (voltage) signal level, or it was at the BER (bit error rate) threshold, and when the signal didn’t meet minimum requirements the monitor simply went blank. So, if an HDMI-connected display is intermittent or constantly black, it’s a good idea to check the cable.
Intelligent people, whether or not highly educated, may not have great computer knowledge.
Those of us who work in Tech Support sometimes forget that non-technical users don’t understand some of the concepts that we take for granted. Here are some real-life examples.
Not understanding the difference between an operating system and an application.
Not understanding the difference between the device and the operating system.
Not understanding the difference between memory and storage.
Not knowing that RAM and memory are the same thing.
Not knowing that disk space and storage are the same thing.
Not understanding the difference between the browser and other applications.
Not knowing if an application is being run locally or on an Internet connected server.
Not knowing whether their files are stored locally, in the cloud, or both.
Not knowing how to find a file without opening the application first.
How to save an attachment so they don’t need to open the email every time they want the attachment.
Not knowing what accessibility features are available on their device, or how to enable them.
As a Help Desk professional, you walk a fine line. You don’t want to explain something that will make a sophisticated user feel like you’re talking down to them, but you also don’t want to make the less knowledgeable user feel stupid. Here are some ways to achieve this balance:
Ask relevant knowledge- and skill-based questions.
Example 1: “I see that this file is only available from your cloud storage. Do you want to be able to open it when you’re not connected to the Internet?”
Example 2: “Since you complained that the words are so small on the screen, it makes me wonder: are you aware that Microsoft has a built-in magnifier that you can turn on and off?”
Offer assistance cheerfully without waiting to be asked, because they may not know what to ask.
Example 1: “Would you like me to help you create a folder structure so you can separate the spreadsheets from the proposal documents?”
Example 2: “You had to scroll a long way to find that document. Would you like me to show you how to sort them alphabetically or by date?”
Be on the lookout for knowledge gaps, without assuming them.
Example: A customer says, “I’m out of disk space.” You look and see 78% free space. They may mean they’re seeing “out of memory” errors, but don’t have the terminology to describe it. Ask, “Can you show me the message that you saw on the screen, and when that message appears?”
Positive feedback from a customer on Square! For several years now, I’ve been using Square for processing credit card transactions. Yesterday I provided remote tech support for a residential computer problem in another state. It was a brand new customer, first-time service. She paid on the spot for a half-hour support call. Then she did something that’s never happened before – she left me a review! Apparently there’s a feedback link on Square’s email receipt. I didn’t even know about it. I don’t know if it’s a new feature, or if it’s always been there. Square sent me an email notifying me of the review. So I’ve never gotten a negative review, or they would’ve sent an email about that, too. Winning! Score is 1-0.
There’s a 50GB limit on the Outlook Online Archive. A client maxed it out with emails going back to 2014. It’s an interesting weekend project for me. While he’s out of the office, I’m getting paid to remote in, dissect the archive, and save it in smaller chunks without losing anything important (he set the parameters for what I could remove). In the process I discovered one more layer of deletion, and this is the reason for my post. Here’s what happens:
When you delete thousands of items in Outlook, they go into the Deleted Items folder.
When you delete those same items from the Deleted Items folder – they’re not gone yet.
It turns out there’s a safety net. At the top of the Deleted Items folder is a hyperlink notice that says, “Recover items recently removed from this folder.”
This user had so many emails that I got to a point where I could no longer delete from the Deleted Items folder, until I first purged that Recovery folder.
SUMMARY
The real deletion process goes like this:
Step 1: Delete from any folder, for example, the Inbox.
Step 2: Delete from the Deleted Items folder.
Step 3: Go to “Recover items recently removed” and choose Purge.
Oh, and any computer forensics specialist will tell you that they’re still not gone, not really. Totally true. But you have to use other tools at that point; you can no longer retrieve them from within the application.
Hiding from the IDS/IPS: covert PING
When you’re doing remote maintenance, the command “ping -t” can be useful. Instead of the ping command sending four echo requests (the default), it pings continuously until you press CTRL + C to stop it.
The problem is that in some higher security environments, continuous pings may be flagged as malicious activity. This detection may occur in the Intrusion Detection System (IDS), the Intrusion Prevention System (IPS), or in the device itself.
I wrote a batch file that I use on Windows machines that’s a little more discreet, and sometimes flies under the radar. It won’t fool next gen detection systems that look for systematic repetitive activity, but you’ll be surprised how many firewalls and malicious activity detection systems don’t pay any attention to this script if you set the time interval to ten seconds or more.
HOW IT WORKS
You’re prompted to enter the IP address you want to ping, and the time interval between pings. Then, it pings one time – not the default four times – waits your specified interval, and pings again. It keeps going like that until you press CTRL + C or close the CLI window.
EXAMPLE USE
I use it, for example, when rebooting a server at a remote location over a VPN. This way I know when the server is back online.
The picture below shows a sample screenshot, and the entire text of the batch file. If you know how to create Windows batch files, that’s all the information you need.
Some of you have already written your own script like this, but for some readers, this will be new. Add it to your toolbox flash drive.
When the server breaks, who do we contact?
It seems that the server was broken for more then 24 hours and I wasn’t sure who to contact. So, who do we ask to reboot or fix the instance if its down?
Lemmy through SDF is basically read-only now. Read interesting stuff, but open an account elsewhere if you want to reply.
Federation is broken....