I’ve been having a lot of issues with my web hosts lately, mostly going back to a single event towards the end of last year. From time to time I do sysadmin duties, so I can’t help but feel that I should learn something from all of this.
There’s a real user behind that account
It might just be an account to me: a record in a table, a line in a config file. But there’s a person using that account. A person with their own bosses and customers. Who they then have to explain themselves to.
If I’m moving stuff, tell the customer
If I’ve been given the task of moving stuff to another server, tell the users involved. It might be a simple task for me, a case of just copying over some files and the right configuration – but something might go wrong. And when something goes wrong because I made a change without telling people, people get angry.
But when something goes wrong because I made a change and I told them, they might even be able to fix the problem themselves. If I forget to update a DNS record, and if they have access to update it themselves, they’ll probably just update it themselves thinking that they were expected to do it, and will probably forgive me.
Don’t just turn things off
Especially if I’m doing it to highlight who’s still using it (that’s what logs are for). Give some notice, and tell them again once it’s off. They might not have known you were planning to turn it off, find something is broken, then get annoyed at me.
Use the same address
So I’m moving everything from server 1 onto server 2. Can’t I just point the same IP or address to the new server? It would save me having to update DNS records, and missing one.
Use the same configuration
If I didn’t use SSL for email before, don’t suddenly start using it now. They might have a script which didn’t understand SSL, which might suddenly break. And upset people.
Check it out
If someone tells me they can’t connect to FTP, then the first thing I should do is try it myself, not ask for logs.
Don’t guess
If I don’t know the answer, don’t answer to the user with a guess. If they can’t edit a domain name when they should be able to, don’t guess that I’m not the registrar. Find out: they’ll only get more annoyed if they know I’m wrong.
Error reporting isn’t perfect
If someone reports a fault — even if it’s late at night — don’t just glance at my error reporting system, shrug, and say “works for me”. Check it out: am I seeing something different? The server might be up, but their account could be down. And I might be the only one who can tell.
Make my support system easy
For example, if I ask people for a log, let them upload a text file. Respond to twitter. Reply to all emails.
Don’t ask for passwords
Really. Especially if I don’t need it. If I need to log into something, create a new account if I don’t have one.