First 5 Minutes Troubleshooting A Server

Re:First 5 Minutes Troubleshooting A Server by rachelbythebay on Tuesday March 12, 2013 @10:08AM (#5361865)

I wish I had recorded some of my better moments when I worked web hosting tech support. Being able to jump onto a box, poke around at two or three things, notice something wrong from that, and come up with a solution was magic. It's hard to believe unless you actually see it happen, though.

I have the recording capability now (and, more importantly, playback too), but the constant influx of broken boxes is gone. Funny how that works.

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Re:First 5 Minutes Troubleshooting A Server by daxelrod on Wednesday March 13, 2013 @01:09AM (#5366929)

What do you use for recording and playback?

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Re:First 5 Minutes Troubleshooting A Server by rachelbythebay on Wednesday March 13, 2013 @01:43AM (#5367029)

Recording: 'script' from util-linux, with a custom patch or two to make it less broken. http://rachelbythebay.com/w/2013/03/02/bugfix/

Playback: a fork of term.js derived from the jslinux terminal with some minor adjustments, plus a wrapper of my own which plays back the data with timing intact. http://rachelbythebay.com/w/2013/03/04/jvt/

I've been using them to demonstrate how I go about writing certain bits of code, with the goal of eventually showing the creation of something larger.

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Re:First 5 Minutes Troubleshooting A Server by dredmorbius on Wednesday March 13, 2013 @11:19PM (#5372891)

Script with saved timestamps is a godsend.

Particularly useful when you're accessing via a serial console, as you'll get full boot from BIOS. You can both log and troubleshoot based on output.

Playback utilities can take a multiplier to speed (or slow) playback from realtime.

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