Patching causes NetStorage issues & a Support Rant

I recently patched all of our OES2 boxes with the latest Nov/Jan patches.  That's when the NetStorage issue started.  It seemed to be a simple issue of "reaccepting" the SSL cert.  Wrong again!  If you're a TTP member, check out the thread on NetStorage Voodoo...interesting list of things going wrong.

For some unknown reason, whoever made the patch package decided it would be perfectly OK to replace any existing SSL certs (ours are Thawt certs in this case) and overwrite some of the customizations made for our environment.  One thing they did right was to make a backup copy.  But, for shame Novell, the SSL certs should be left alone by default.

The patching process is getting smoother, and slowly converting over my Red Hat guy to being happy with YAST.  I really don't care about the mechanism (I don't mind learning new products and processes) I just want it to work and not make assumptions about things like SSL certs and passwords.

In case you haven't run into this particular "fluke", several of Novell's products are having issues with complex passwords - especially those with spaces in them.  If you run into an issue with authentication to the tree or a root account, change the password to the funky one they use in ATT classes and it will work beautifully.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not dissing Novell.  I still love their products, but lately quality has been lacking as more and more coding work gets shipped over to India.  How about bringing those jobs back to US/UK/EU Novell?  We miss good code.

And please bring back the infamous world-wide support.  I said back in the early 90's that Linux would be more readily accepted into the corporate IT systems infrastructures when there was world-wide, Cadillac-class support available, like Novell had.  Had being the key word here. It's not just he US complaining either.  It's not an issue of accent, it's an issue of cultural differences that are not going to change rapidly.  It used to be you got a person that was at least on the same continent so there were fewer cultural obstacles.

I've been in the industry longer than some of the techs that I get on the phone have been alive and I usually end up arguing with them for sometime - unless it's a woman, they're usually really good about going off script.  I don't need a script kid...I need at least a 3rd tier support person who will talk TO a woman instead of DOWN to a woman (the guys usually hang up on me with no resolution) to verify that I need backline engineering support.  I don't call for anything other than a bug anyway, so figure out a way to help those customers out that don't have the inside connections that I do.  I'm lucky, I have a support manager's cell phone number and the ear of the CxO's (for now anyway).  And still it's harder to get an SR opened with Novell than it is with Microsoft now.  It used to be the other way around.  I miss the "good old days" of Novell support.  Sigh...