Andy Ruhl wrote:

>On Mon, 01 Nov 2004 17:15:21 -0600, Michael Cozzi
><cozzi@cozziconsulting.com> wrote:
>  
>
>>Colin Raven wrote:
>>
>>    
>>
>>>Andy Ruhl wrote:
>>><sob>
>>>/me looks at a long night ahead.
>>>Isn't this great though?? I mean...all the practice....excellent for
>>>documentation writing purposes.
>>>/me hits self on the head with a large book
>>>      
>>>
>>    Dont be too hard on yourself.
>>
>>    I once firewalled myself out of my primary MX host with the sendmail
>>config munged up so bad it was an open relay. I have the box closeted at
>>a client site.
>>
>>    At 12:00am I had two choices, drive 4 hours and solve the problem,
>>or get lucky that someone would answer the phone at the site.
>>
>>    Someone answered the phone. I had to talk a 72 year old semi-retired
>>Janitor (named Hugh) through login, su, and iptables configuration via
>>phone, with the computer located 250 feet from where the phone is. It
>>took about an hour of him running between the phone and the server (was
>>that a space followed by a slash sir?) when finally (miraculously) I got
>>an ssh connection.
>>
>>    With permission of the client, I sent him a $250.00 gift certificate
>>to Home Depot. This last summer, I also attended his daughter's wedding
>>after hiring his grandson as an onsite admin at one of my larger clients.
>>
>>    Always look at the bright side. It aint that bad.
>>
>>    Enjoy the coffee....
>>    
>>
>
>Wow, that is a really cool story! I work support and sometimes the
>people that call are not the people who got into the problem, because
>the primary person is on (permanent) "vacation". The people that are
>on the phone are probably like your janitor, but in the end they end
>up thanking me in similar ways. I can't accept gifts though,
>unfortunately.
>
>Thanks for that.
>
>  
>
Yes indeed - thanks for *that*!!!!!...what a great story. That did my 
heart good!!!
Following up on Justin's point, I never for one moment thought to look 
for the toor account, though it's a standard on FreeBSD and I *should* 
have thought of it since I do admin several FreeBSD boxes (boxen?) I 
logged off and booted into the restore CD too quickly, by the time that 
gem arrived in my inbox I was vi'ing my head off getting the restored 
Qube back online. Luckily I ftp'd the pkgsrc.tgz to a local server - so 
once restored, re-grabbing the software was a fairly trivial issue, and 
as Im writing this it's un-stuffing itself into /usr.....soon my 'lil 
box will be as good as new once again.
Woo...Hoo.../me is *almost* ready to say that this is fun. My wife 
thinks I have completely lost my mind.
Thanks for the reassuring words, they made *all* the difference. :) :) :)
-Colin