To help or not to

Helping others even when it looks like it is not your problem, that is the main idea behind this post. I was recently request to provide assistance to an application team and business partner. I had reviewed the request and the logs of the database and even had the platform team look into the servers involved in the error. I could not find any errors being logged. I studied the email some more, and noticed an database error code listed in a screen shot in very tiny print. So researching this it was a no data found error. I asked the application team if they checked the SQL being executed but they had no idea.

We had a conference call and screen sharing and I asked to see the work flow in the Informatica tool. It showed a script being executed, so I asked what was passed in and what databases it was executed in, and we looked at a stored procedure. The application team was drilling deeper into the issue and found a flag in the workflow where it was still showing that it was running. This was false, so they changed it and viola.

They were able to start the workflow and process the flat files. I did not do anything but ask appropriate questions. Everyone was afraid to look at anything since it was such an old interface of at least 15 year or so. I merely wanted to see what parameters and execution of statements were being called.  The bottom line is don't be afraid to try and help others even if it does not appear to be a problem with your area of responsibility, sometimes you can make a difference and ask the questions that leads others to solve their problem.

Good luck on your troubleshooting and problem solving adventures!

When was this Red Hat Linux system installed?

Have you ever inherited a server and needed to know when the operating system was installed and placed into service? 

I have encountered this situation before and here are a couple of ways to determine that information.

 

On Red Hat Linux we can use rpm:

rpm –qi basesystem

Another option for Red Hat Linux and Oracle Linux 6.5

ls –l /root/install.log only

and a third option is

ls –l /var/log/anaconda.* or ls –l /var/log/anaconda/anaconda.* for  Fedora Core on Schrodinger’s Cat release 19

All of these commands will produce log files or display output that will correspond to the date that the operating system was installed and should give the administrator a good starting point for understanding when the installation was performed.

 

Good luck with further detective work on the new inherited system.