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Comments
Usually this is the default first or second reply of outsourced support. Of course you should refuse. Additionally if for production boycott the provider before you incur a major incident and there is no-one manning the desk who can fix anything.
Seriously, I wish more people were like you.
Well the problem with @MasonR's perspective is that it simply does not apply in the low end real world of VPS hosting.
A world where tickets go like this:
Customer: "cannot work pls fix my root is abc123"
Host: "This is a self-managed service if you require assistance please provide detailed troubleshooting and more details on what specifically is not working"
Customer: "The VPS is not work"
Host: "What specifically does not work, your VPS is responding to ssh and ping?"
Customer: "random software package from 3rd party repo give an error"
Host: "Sorry that is not supported as part of your self-managed package, please contact the software vendor"
Customer: 'Insert random insult and threat here'
--
Or you get people who think it is ok to write you a book in a ticket and take up so much of your time you might as well be managing things for them.
While I fully appreciate this is not how it should go, and I fully appreciate there are a good percentage of people who do actually know how to manage a VPS properly, you are the minority.
If you don't provide some basic support at least enough so that the end user fully understands why it is not supported (and yes sometimes this can require some server interaction) you just get trashed as a host by the majority.
So yes I wish I could take that ideal world stance of "not supported" and be done with it, that is just not how it works in the real world.
I have been doing this for 7 years now, IT support for MUCH longer, I have taken support work for other hosts, smaller companies, and bigger companies during that time, my perspective seems to be a fairly universal truth when it comes to the expectations of end users not actually paying for support and you need to work to at least assist with them coming to more realistic expectations if you are not going to help them with the actual problem they have.
Tried that once (different provider though) and got a reply that the ticket got forwarded to the "System Admin" who resolved the issue little later.
Actually I do not want them to work on my VPS. If they need additional information, I'm happy to work with them. But I also understand that it's easier and faster for them to have access to the system rather than play ticket ping-pong all day.
That's probably the way to go. I still don't see how that's necessary in my case.
This.
I did. When they asked for the root password, I was only annoyed. When they changed my IP to another one from the same subnet tonight, I got pissed. I highly doubt that my VPS is the only one in that /22, so I have no idea how they still didn't notice that there's something bigger going on than just a misconfiguration on my box.
Don't be rude, she has feelings too
They won't be able to log in via SSH in any case as the network's down.
nope if the problem is from provider side
If they're unable to understand a mtr, I highly doubt they're able to mount a file system.
I get your points. The support agent does not know whether he's talking to someone who knows his shit or not. So it's probably the fastest way and less hassle for them to just check things on their own.
Agreed, and from a provider's perspective, that's understandable.
Although, I'd argue that in the OP's case where he provided evidence of what was wrong and it obviously wasn't an issue with the OP's instance, the provider wouldn't need to go poking and prodding around in the VM. But again, I totally agree that 9/10 tickets probably provide little to no proof of the customer taking initiative to see exactly what is wrong or competence to do so.
Like I said, if you don't trust the provider, just signup for another provider.
When you get to the point of having hundreds of tickets per day, you'll easily understand that it's faster to diagnose the issue, than having the client to reply back and forth. Ends up spending you more time than it should/is worth.
Although, MTR tests shouldn't need access to the VPS itself, unless you're unable to run an MTR from the VPS to your home IP, in such case, if the provider is offering help to do so and you're refusing to give them your root passwd then you're pretty much on your own.
Don't open a ticket for support if you don't want to let them help you. Problem solved.
The other week I had a nail in my tire so I brought it to the dealership to get repaired. They asked me for my keys and I just laughed as I drove the car off the lot. Why do they need the keys to my vehicle to fix a tire that's on the outside????? MORONS!!!!! [/sarcasm]
The bottom line is, you opened a ticket for them to fix something. You couldn't fix it so how do you know what's wrong? How do you know how they will troubleshoot something that is broke? Why would you prevent them from doing their jobs because you think it's not important? You're well within your rights to refuse to give them the root password, just don't expect them to help you if you refuse to let them help you.
Since it's story time. Let's say I'm getting the driveway in front of my house repaved. The contractor says, "hey, by the way I need a copy of the key to your front door because 'reasons'." I say, "why? All I want to do is be able to drive up to and park by my house." The contractor says, "well I'm not doing the job then because I need full access to your home."
I don't think anyone here is arguing that a provider would absolutely never need root access to troubleshoot problems. But when the customer has obviously shown that the issue resides outside of their control (i.e. the network in this case), the provider should be competent enough to resolve the issue remotely.
A driveway is not part of the house so they would never need access to the house. That's like saying they need your house key to mow your lawn. In my example, I'm asking somebody to fix my car so it's entirely reasonable for them to need access to the car.
Unless the provider needs to perform additional troubleshooting steps in addition to documenting everything for their supervisors. How would the support tech know if the problem is fixed if they didn't have access to the VPS to test it? If you want to waste the tech's time then sure don't be helpful, but if you want to get the issue resolved and the ticket closed quickly just provide them the access they ask for (like mentioned above, it shouldn't have to be root access).
Dropped your pipe..
Both of these are stupid analogies, but obviously having the ability to move your vehicle for convenience sake is more akin to a provider wanting access to your machine than the asphalt dude wanting to rifle through your wife's frilly things.
@WSS :I
Then run them from the host, requesting root for that is insanely dumb.
Sure, that was a bit of a stretch.
The OP's case above could be quickly verified that it's working by the provider pinging the customer's IP from outside the subnet. No intervention required.
Unless the problem is within the VPS itself. 99% of the tickets I get saying "the network is down" is easily fixed with the removal of a few iptables rules within the VPS (meaning the customer was blocking the traffic and our network was fine).
Exactly.
There needs to be a stupid tax that gets passed onto clients that aren't smart enough to manage their own firewall rules.
If somebody made a common sense test module for WHMCS that clients had to pass before they could pay an invoice it would be super popular.
In retrospect after reading all of these providers' responses, it seems I've grossly overestimated the competence level of the average customer. :P
There are plenty of technology-related customers that are just as stupid as the person who decides to save money on their oil changes and ends up draining the transmission of fluids.
You don't know how many tickets we get asking "what is linux?" after they purchased an OpenVZ VPS. It's not that a lot of clients are incompetent, it's that the low price makes them go "for $X I can figure out what a SSH is". A lot of company policies are in place specifically for the majority of clients, which usually are the ones that need the most hand holding. In the past year I can only recall one client who ever opened a ticket with a traceroute, ping, or MTR in the initial ticket. With the hundreds of tickets I've received in the past 60 days, most of them could have been solved with a reboot. We just recently had one client who disabled the OpenSSH service and then opened a ticket complaining that he couldn't SSH to the server. What stinks the most is I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt so of course I wasted however long troubleshooting the issue and it never occurred to me that the client would disabled SSH then proceed to open a ticket that SSH was disabled. That $15 I made off that client was easily eaten up by the time I spent on that ticket.
So yeah in most cases asking for your root password probably isn't necessary, but for every client like you who does the troubleshooting for the support tech there are thousands who just turned off their VPS and wonder why their website stopped loading.
EDIT: And I just realized you aren't the OP. My bad.
Running a hosting business doesn't seem to make sense given the labour costs you have in the first world. Why do you even bother?
All your roots are belongs to mes.
And all the provider replies here are the reason why most times i do not even bother opening ticket when i encounter an issue which is definitely provider side. I either live with it or move to another provider. Because it is usually easier and faster than dealing with support stuff which is both, not very experienced/competent and assumes that i am complete moron. Thankfully it does not work like this with all providers.
With the amount of porn we already know you have and don't have time to watch... might as well share because sharing is caring.
Provider hopping on any perceived issue is a pretty common practice around here. I'm sure you will fit in well.