Appropriated | Computerworld

This pilot fish will get a request for a brand new server, and after being glad with all his post-install checks, he turns it over to the purchasers. However they are saying the server is experiencing intermittent community connectivity.

So fish has the community workforce test the port, community change and cable. All appears effective: fixed hyperlink standing and no dropped packets. However the issue persists. Fish calls vendor for assist and sends it the diag report from the lights-out interface. However the {hardware} seems effective.

New day, new technique. Fish tries “watch nmap” from his workstation; no points. He tries it from the Kickstart server. And that is attention-grabbing: The server is working one run, however no response the subsequent. On a hunch, fish provides ARP test within the watch. Now he’s getting someplace: ARP is alternating between two MAC deal with from the identical IP, certainly one of which fish doesn’t acknowledge.

The community workforce then does its magic to steer fish to an empty desk and its bewildered neighbor, who can solely watch whereas fish and crew test the partitions for the suspected community drop. Tech verifies that the system on the unoccupied desk is utilizing the IP assigned to the server constructed final week.

Fish asks the consumer to kindly inform the proprietor of the rogue system that IP addresses should be assigned by the community workforce after opening a ticket.

“In any other case, it’ll trigger numerous issues for lots of people.”

And that “lot of individuals” march off to cope with the subsequent subject.

Calling all pilot fish! Sharky wants your true tales of IT life. Ship them to me at sharky@computerworld.com. You can even subscribe to the Each day Shark Publication.