Linux Administration Cookbook

Getting ready

After you've got as much information about the problem, either from your own cursory glance of the symptoms (the website is down) or the support person who pestered you with it, it's time to get to the issue of isolation.

Be sure to recreate the issue for yourself. It's an important and often overlooked step that should be taken by anyone looking into an issue. If you have the means to recreate a problem, you should start by doing so, even if it's as simple as going to the company's URL in your browser and checking for yourself that the site doesn't load. This is important, as it gives you a base from which to start, and you can use the same series of steps every time you make a change, or believe you've fixed the problem. If ...