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[Gatleos]

[Dermonster]

"Oh god damnit I bet they just knocked their ethernet code out."

[X] VERY TIRED 𝒜𝒟𝑀𝐼𝒩 𝒟𝐸𝑅𝑀 is ON THE JOB. Ring 'em up.

[wierd]

Triage:

How does this system normally connect to the internet?
Has this system ever successfully connected to the internet before?
What way is the user attempting to connect to the internet?
What kind of system is this?
For what purpose is the internet being connected to?
Is this a facility managed appliance, or is this a vendor managed appliance? (Very important question! Delegate whenever possible!)
Has there been any kind of infrastructure maintenance/upgrade recently that might have caused an outage?
Can the user give more detail on the nature of this issue? (specific products, configurations, or use cases appreciated.)
What is the network topology between the user and the company internet gateway?
Are there any local services that might be conflicting with internet access? (Intranet DNS, black holed subnets, non-reciprocal routes defined at the switch/router, etc..)

[more personal questions]

Is the end user really competent enough to file a proper support ticket?
If not, is there somebody more competent that we can contact for more information?

[Gatleos]

How does this system normally connect to the internet?

Well, they haven't given any details. There is a room number listed in a comment, which is weird. Probably through a physical connection, in that case.

Has this system ever successfully connected to the internet before?
What way is the user attempting to connect to the internet?
What kind of system is this?
For what purpose is the internet being connected to?

Actually, you're not really sure who submitted this. There isn't a user associated with the request, which might be a bug in the tracker software. Ugh.

Is this a facility managed appliance, or is this a vendor managed appliance? (Very important question! Delegate whenever possible!)
Has there been any kind of infrastructure maintenance/upgrade recently that might have caused an outage?
Can the user give more detail on the nature of this issue? (specific products, configurations, or use cases appreciated.)
What is the network topology between the user and the company internet gateway?
Are there any local services that might be conflicting with internet access? (Intranet DNS, black holed subnets, non-reciprocal routes defined at the switch/router, etc..)
Is the end user really competent enough to file a proper support ticket?
If not, is there somebody more competent that we can contact for more information?

This is a really poorly-made support request, now that you look more closely. Hardly any detail. You might as well just head down there and figure out who sent this, and try to get more information. Not much else going on today anyway.

"Oh god damnit I bet they just knocked their ethernet code out."

[X] VERY TIRED 𝒜𝒟𝑀𝐼𝒩 𝒟𝐸𝑅𝑀 is ON THE JOB. Ring 'em up.

Not that you exactly appreciate being compelled to walk across the building to diagnose a malformed support ticket. You'll be having some words when you get over there.


Arriving at the given room number, you find a darkened corner office that you don't remember seeing before. You flick on the light switch, and after a moment or two, an eerie yellowish glow and loud electric buzz fill the room. The whole room is empty, save for a rusty folding chair and scuffed up oaken desk. Atop the desk is a computer tower composed of sickly yellow plastic, and a... CRT monitor. This hardware looks almost 20 years old. Whose office is this?

[Dermonster]

[X] Looks like a shitty horror movie room. Feel slightly silly and leave a note about your whereabouts on the floor outside before proceeding.

Then, investigate the machine.

[Olith McHuman]

Mark the ticket as resolved. They can submit a ticket, therefore the internet works!

[wierd]

Ticket tracking is intranet, not internet. Intra-office email and other intranet services can still function, even when the default gateway is down.

Also, might have been submitted through a third party. (or, automatically submitted by the tracking system when the system failed to respond to an automated network request a programmed number of times.)

This is possibly some "mission critical" legacy system. The kind that requires dark age computer skills from the 80s. (Thankfully I have those.) These things are notorious for their combination of "need legacy hardware to run software that there is no replacement for, and the company that made it went out of business decades ago." 

[X] Collect the service asset tag from the back of the tower, then look it up in the asset tracking system, see if there are any prior tickets for this hardware. If there are any, they can help us learn more about the "use case" of this system.

[Gatleos]

Mark the ticket as resolved. They can submit a ticket, therefore the internet works!

You're pretty sure they weren't connecting to the internet through this piece of shit, anyway. You don't see any wires going anywhere, save for the power supply. You're not sure it's been used since around 2002 or so.

[X] Looks like a shitty horror movie room. Feel slightly silly and leave a note about your whereabouts on the floor outside before proceeding.

Then, investigate the machine.

Just in case you're in a shitty horror movie right now, you decide to leave a note outside.



Most people on this floor already left for the day, so you're not sure how effective this could be. Better safe than sorry, you guess. Next, you approach the machine and take a look. Attached to the side of the monitor is a sticky note:



You were hoping for something a little more descriptive, but okay.

Collect the service asset tag from the back of the tower, then look it up in the asset tracking system, see if there are any prior tickets for this hardware. If there are any, they can help us learn more about the "use case" of this system.

You decide to look for any clues on the back of the tower, and... in place of the usual serial number, you find some scribbled nonsense. Actually... after a bit of cross-referencing, you realize it's the same string of nonsense symbols scrawled on that sticky note. Is this a joke?

[Dermonster]

Quick, does anyone speak Daedric?

[X] Well, time to foolishly stumble into this fantastical/supernatural bullshit headfirst. You hated this place anyway. Investigate desktop.

[wierd]

Cheapshot ticket resolution:

"Hardware not in asset database, no declared function, no business use case. Marked "Wont fix." '

LEET ticket resolution:

Cross reference obvious Oblivion script characters with google image search. Translate text. Write response in same font, "File a proper ticket, joker."

[Gatleos]

Cross reference obvious Oblivion script characters with google image search. Translate text. Write response in same font, "File a proper ticket, joker."

On a whim, you pull out your phone and google "Oblivion".



You get a bunch of results for a kind of terrible-looking Tom Cruise movie? You kind of thought the text might be from a video game or something but you know all of the video games and this clearly is not from any video game you are or have ever been aware of ANYWAY

[X] Well, time to foolishly stumble into this fantastical/supernatural bullshit headfirst. You hated this place anyway. Investigate desktop.

Okay so this is indeed an out-of-date piece of shit legacy system. Everything seems nominal, it's got a really old version of Windows installed on it. You guess somebody was having connectivity issues?

[wierd]

start->run->winipcfg

take note of the reported data from winipcfg.

start->run->command.com

route print

take note of the printed routing table.

Test for network connectivity:

ping 8.8.8.8

[Olith McHuman]

Breath a sigh of relief. It isn't window ME!

[Dermonster]

[X] Check Recycle bin

[wierd]

Breath a sigh of relief. It isn't window ME!

Could have been win3.11 with a DOS based NDIS driver, and trumpet winsock.  (or WORSE, a dos based tcp/ip packet driver!! Horrors!) [feels really old now.]