Workshop

Drive duplication can be a big help here, because it’s fairly easy to “shotgun” a known “good” hard drive
setup to a hard drive setup that’s having configuration difficulties (see Hour 16, “Where Do I Start?” for
more information). Remaking the user’s home directory is another good method of “shotgunning” a
problem once you’ve identify the general target. For example, because UNIX programs are dependent on
multiple configuration files in a user’s home directory, I sometimes rename a user’s home directory,
make a new home directory for that user, and then copy a known “good” user’s home directory contents
into it (see Figure 5.2).
Figure 5.2 Shotgunning a user’s home directory.
For those times when you can’t use this technique (for example, when crucial information would be
overwritten), you’ll want to consider the following components, listed from the highest level (to the left)
to the lowest level (to the right):
- Workstation
- BIOS / Manufacturer
- Hard drive
- Operating system configuration (startup files, Registry)
- Operating system components (DLLs)
- Local applications (versus network)
- Virus? Or not!
- Network card
- Cable
- Video card
- RAM
- Power
- UPS
- Surge suppression
- User login on server
- Login script
- Permissions
- Application configuration files (user-oriented access list?)
- User files (home directory)
- Application itself (versus on hard drive)
- Port on the switch or hub