I accidentally the config file

Yes, today is the day that I made a fine boo-boo.  A shameful one, to be honest.

I was deploying config files for the monitoring software and got lazy - I overwrote files instead of moving them or renaming them...all because I wanted to get that last little bit done before I left for the day.

Of course it turns out that some esoteric command was in the files.  Not mission-critical, but I'll be spending time in the backup software tomorrow (assuming the servers were ever backed up) trying to figure it out.  Or re-writing the command from scratch.  Ouch.

The amount of time it will take to rename the files versus restore from backup can be described in orders of magnitude.  Honest to goodness - at least this project is almost over.

Lesson:  Even if you are 100% certain you'll be okay overwriting a file - move or rename it for insurance, because restoring from backup is tedious and painful and sometimes an endeavour in panic.  

Sub-lesson: Are you in a hurry to go somewhere?  Are you simultaneously working on production systems?  Just stop.  Stop right now.

Comments

  1. KeithJanuary 17, 2012 at 5:32 PM

    Bonus points for the sub-lesson. That's an important one to remember for sure! "Hurry" and "production systems" don't belong in the same thought :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Chris TrotterJanuary 18, 2012 at 6:08 AM

    Your sponsor for this update is 'Sub-lesson #2'!

    Sub-lesson #2: Talent can lead to laziness.

    Update: None of these servers were backed up. Sweet! Guess you'll see a nice blog entry on some Nagios commands soon.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Chris TrotterJanuary 18, 2012 at 4:16 PM

    Okay, found an old config file that had enough in it to allow some reverse engineering. We good.

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnittaJanuary 29, 2012 at 4:55 AM

    Title is odd ... deliberate or typo?

    We learn by being taught but mistakes help the lesson stick.

    ReplyDelete

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