Anatomy of a Ticket

I’ve spent many years in various tech support roles throughout my career, regularly reviewing issues customers face. At The Planet, our goal is to provide excellent service for our customers, which usually comes through our support tickets. Most of our customers use the ticket system, so I thought I’d offer some thoughts on how to ensure we help you resolve outstanding issues quickly and thoroughly.

Here is an example of a support ticket that provides just about every detail that’s necessary to remediate the issue:

—–SNIP—–

Department: Support

Subject: New York City AT&T DSL unable to connect to my server in DLLSTX6

Server: servername-1.2.3.4

Body: My customer, Jon Smith, is unable to ssh into 1.2.3.4 on tcp/22 from 255.255.255.255. We have insured that Jon is not being blocked via iptables and he can connect to Apache on tcp/80.

[root@server ~]# iptables –nLChain INPUT (policy ACCEPT)target prot opt source

destination Chain FORWARD (policy ACCEPT)target prot opt source

destination Chain OUTPUT (policy ACCEPT)target prot opt source destination[root@server ~]#

[root@server ~]# traceroute 255.255.255.255

myserversgateway (1.2.3.1) 0.004 ms 0.020 ms 0.011 ms

1 dsr01.dllstx2.theplanet.com (12.96.160.9) 0.901 ms 0.944 ms 1.174 ms

2 …3 ……10 …11 255.255.255.255 (255.255.255.255) 42.211 ms 50.421 ms 45.114 ms[root@server ~]# ping 255.255.255.255PING 255.255.255.255 (255.255.255.255) 56(84) bytes of data.

64 bytes from 255.255.255.255 (255.255.255.255): icmp_seq=0 ttl=43 time=49.0 ms

64 bytes from 255.255.255.255 (255.255.255.255): icmp_seq=1 ttl=43 time=45.4 ms

64 bytes from 255.255.255.255 (255.255.255.255): icmp_seq=2 ttl=43 time=45.5 ms

64 bytes from 255.255.255.255 (255.255.255.255): icmp_seq=3 ttl=43 time=54.0 ms

64 bytes from 255.255.255.255 (255.255.255.255): icmp_seq=4 ttl=43 time=46.1 ms

— 255.255.255.255 ping statistics —

5 packets transmitted, 5 received, 0% packet loss, time 4003ms

rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 45.453/48.060/54.077/3.277 ms, pipe 2

[root@server ~]#

[customer@remoteserver ~]$ telnet 1.2.3.4 80

Trying 1.2.3.4…

Connected to myserver.tld (1.2.3.4).

Escape character is ‘^]’.

HEAD / HTTP/1.0

HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found

Date: Fri, 06 Jul 2007 17:34:37 GMT

Server: Apache/2.0.52 (Red Hat)

Connection: closeContent-

Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1

Connection closed by foreign host.[customer@remoteserver ~]$

ssh 1.2.3.4ssh_exchange_identification:

Connection closed by remote host[customer@remoteserver ~]$ telnet 1.2.3.4 22

Trying 1.2.3.4…

Connected to myserver.tld (1.2.3.4).Escape character is ‘^]’.

Connection closed by foreign host.[customer@remoteserver ~]$

You can login to my server with the credentials listed in Orbit. You can reach me any time at (555) 555-5555.

Thank you,Bob

Customerbob@remote.tld

—END SNIP—

Without ever logging into the server, our trained technicians are able to immediately identify the problem. The issue in this case is that either through a script(bfd) or other means, the remote user is being denied by TCP WRAPPERS (man 5 hosts_access). We are able to see that iptables are not blocking any connections, and we are able to reach the server without issue on another TCP port that’s not typically controlled by the wrapper. The customer ensures that the ticket subject was descriptive so that our technicians are able to evaluate the ticket in the support system queue. Each technician typically has a different area of expertise, so we work to steer the ticket to the right person for the job. Here is a list of subjects that provide helpful information for the support techs responding to the ticket:

1. cPanel: WHM is not responding. Server is accessible via SSH
2. Apache: My .cgi is giving a 501 error
3. cPanel: Apache is segfaulting after I upgraded PHP
4. Exim: User so-and-so cannot send outgoing form mail after tweaking security in cPanel
5. Server kernel panics daily. Need to have the RAM tested/replaced
6. MySQL: forums refusing more than 100 concurrent users
7. Reboot Request**
8. Network: San Jose, CA – 350ms RTT via Sprintlink

** #7 should not be a Support Ticket but a Reboot Ticket.

At The Planet, tech support is always eager to help resolve issues quickly and efficiently, so when customers add a bit of detail in the subject line, we’re able to ensure the ticket is routed to the most appropriate individual.

Just a few tips to help bring a quick resolution to a number of support issues. Thanks for stopping by.

- Anthony

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 10th, 2007 at 5:00 am and is filed under Tech Stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.