Service Desk Knowledgebase: Operator Tasks

This is the Operator Tasks content page of the CL Wiki Service Desk Knowledgebase. Its purpose is to provide information to the Service Desk team on how to handle problems and requests about this CL service. If you are involved with the provision of this CL service please feel free to add to the knowledge about that it.

If CL staff need to tell the Service Desk team about problems with this service please email
sys-admin-aside@cl.cam.ac.uk.

Return to the Service Desk Knowledgebase SERVICE PORTFOLIO

Key Service Description & URLs

The operation processes are to install and move hardware and to install and update the operating system when a machine is re-deployed. In addition telephones and network connections are maintained. Unused equipment is to be reclaimed and unused wiring to be removed.

• SysInfo main page.
• SysInfo/Helpdesk page.
• CL Administration page.
• CL SCG Database page.
• Computer Lab RT
• Office plan page.
  

CL Customer Documentation

• Find a room

Further CL Sys-Admin Resources

• http://www.wiki.cl.cam.ac.uk/clwiki/SysInfo/HelpDesk/Documentation - OPenRoomMap (ORM)

Underpinning Services

• ??? - Any supporting or underpinning services

Customer-base for this Service

• All staff and students of the Computer Laboratory

Costs

• Free to all current staff and students of the Computer Laboratory

SLA

• N/A

Service Desk Call Handling Procedure

• RT tickets can be escalated to the sys-admin team by changing the Queue as sys-admin with the Owner set to Nobody and the Status set to new.

• RT tickets can be passed to the Operator team by changing the Queue as oper with the Owner set to Nobody and the Status set to new.

• RT tickets can be Taken from the oper queue by members of the oper team. When the work requested has been completed the ticket status should be set to new, the owner to nobody and the queue to sys-admin.

Contacts

Primary

• ???@cl.cam.ac.uk (Goes to ???)
• ???@lists.cam.ac.uk (Goes to ???)
• Tel: ???

Other

• Firstname Lastname

Availability

• Monday to Friday 9-5

Hints, Tips & Known Issues

Procedure for Patching

Graham Titmus (27/01/2015)

The patches are documented in the database. All physical cables on the patch panels should be documented. For patches for telephones only the patch should have a comment in it which has Telephone at the start. All other patches will also have a connection to a physical machine as well. If a person is being moved form one room to another then the Staff List should be updated when the move is completed with the new office number.

Adding a patch

1. Go to the floorbox page and enter the box name (somethings like WC2E-012 - the box number always ends with 3 digits pad with zeros if required) and press [Enter]
2. If no connection shows up for the port you plan to use press the [Add Connection] button
3. On the AddConnection page add in the port number (between 1 and 4, phones usually are in port 1) and the machine inventory number. Then click on create.
4. You will be taken back to the floorbox page. Click on [Trace] by the connection you have just added.
5. On the Cable Trace page you should see a single line for a connection in the floor box. Click on [Add Patch].
6. You will then be on the Add Patch page. Enter the other end of the patch in the form HOST-012 (use 3 digits with preceding zeros for the last part of the host port). Click on [Create]

The wiring database is now completely updated. The VLAN now needs to be configured for that port.

Removing a patch

If the connection is shared with a telephone then the patch should not be removed but the CONnection for the machine does need to be removed.

With Phone

1. Go to the floorbox page and enter the box name (somethings like WC2E-012 - the box number always ends with 3 digits pad with zeros if required) and press [Enter]
2. Click on [Trace] by the connection you have just added.
3. On the Cable trace page you should see a four line trace for a connection in the floor box. Click on the number to the left of the label [CON].
4. On the next page click on Delete Connectopn

Without phone

1. Go to the floorbox page and enter the box name (somethings like WC2E-012 - the box number always ends with 3 digits pad with zeros if required) and press [Enter]
2. Click on [Trace] by the connection you have just added.
3. On the Cable trace page you should see a four line trace for a connection in the floor box. Click on [Delete All].

After adding or removing a patch pass the ticket back to sys-admin, put a comment on the ticket saying which HOST port the patch was added to or removed from.

Reinstall a machine

Graham Titmus (27/01/2015)

To reinstall a machine that is currently working you can do so by copying a fresh image into a spare partition.

1. Login to the machine using your CL account
2. Check to see which partitions are available on the machine

cl-asuser blkid

1. Check which partition is in use at present

df /

1. Choose the device like /dev/sda? that is not currently in use - the disc may show up as a UUID which you check against the balked listing
2. Assuming /dev/sda2 is not currently in use then do the following (if /dev/sda2 is the current too then use dev=sda1 instead):-

dev=sda2
cd /a/misc-nosnap1/distros/ubuntu/clone/
sudo dd if=/dev/zero bs=512 count=3 of=/dev/$dev
sudo ./restore reinstall $dev

1. Restart the machine when the reinstall is completed
2. Check you can login
3. If the machine is to be given to someone different form the current owner then run replacing $crsid with their actual crossed i.e. gt19

cl-asuser cl-hostid-fix --user $crsid -a

Install a new machine

Graham Titmus (27/01/2015)

The simplest option is to clone a master disc.

Linux Operating System Upgrades

Piete Brooks (27/04/2015)

• • • DRAFT based on RT#95410***

This is a straightforward case - does oper know how to do it? Basically

cd /a/misc-nosnap1/distros/ubuntu/clone 

head restore and see the last two lines. In this case:

sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda1 bs=512 count=3 

sudo ./restore reinstall sda1 press [Enter] a few times (or just wait), and on next reboot it will be 14.04. Best to reboot and test things while a CO is around 'just in case'.

Categorising Keywords

• Machine moves installation network patching telephones