Solution: Change tester



  • So, the system I develop for has, aside from normal and sane user auth and role level permissions, a local configurable passkey for "I really want to do dangerous stuff".
    Other feature is firmware rollback, meaning you can, rollback the firmware, restore a configuration backup, and only the controller reboots while the system continues fully working.

    ##Ticket
    Rollback on config #supper important mode for biggest client# makes the passkey not working. A key reset is needed.

    ###First Reaction
    What?
    ###Analysis
    Does not make sense, feature is completely at auth layer, config mode is completely separated. And only this setup is reporting the issue. R&D builds the setup, applies the same initial configuration and repeats all the steps from the test spec.

    Nothing. Tester contacted and he says "It is always reproducible!". "Ok, full system snapshot before and after rollback please?"

    After several hours digging on logs and more logs for issues with the passkey functionality, I stumble upon 4 lines of logs that at first glance were completely normal.
    A backup from other system was being applied after the rollback, making the keys, which are salted using hw info, unusable. The backup was being used as a "template" to avoid configuring the system by hand.

    What is a polite way to say to their face and their bosses when someone is TRWTF?


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @presidentsdaughter said:

    What is a polite way to say to their face and their bosses when someone is TRWTF?

    "Your shortcuts used for testing are not supported. Please amend your testing procedure documentation to reflect this KTHXBYE. "

    ?



  • Sounds like someone needs to use Puppet.



  • @presidentsdaughter said:

    A backup from other system was being applied after the rollback, making the keys, which are salted using hw info, unusable. The backup was being used as a "template" to avoid configuring the system by hand.

    I blame your system's design. Why does it allow restoring a backup from another system if you know in advance that it's going to break things?



  • Not really. The backup from other system might be just this system with a new controller card (hw replacement e.g.)
    This "passkey" is well documented on the customer tech support docs that in case of HW changes, the passkey needs to be reset. This is QA taking shortcuts outside their own specifications.



  • @presidentsdaughter said:

    What is a polite way to say to their face and their bosses when someone is TRWTF?

    "To duplicate this issue, the rollback step is not needed. All that is required is the step of restoring config from a backup made on different hardware, triggering passkey invalidation per tech support documentation [link]. This behavior is by design. RESOLVED INVALID."



  • @flabdablet said:

    This behavior is by design. RESOLVED INVALID

    *shudder*

    Sorry, just... just a reflex.


  • FoxDev

    @flabdablet said:

    [snip] RESOLVED INVALID."

    Wouldn't that be better as RESOLVED: PEBKAC, or RESOLVED: iD-10T ERROR or even RESOLVED: WRONGUNIVERSE

    unless your JIRA is locked down so you can't create custom resolution types.



  • @accalia said:

    Wouldn't that be better as RESOLVED: PEBKAC, or RESOLVED: iD-10T ERROR or even RESOLVED: WRONGUNIVERSE

    unless your JIRA is locked down so you can't create custom resolution types.

    Who said they were using JIRA?

    As someone forced to use Bugzilla for past projects, RESOLVED INVALID is a perfectly valid Bugzilla close reason (RESOLVED in first dropdown, INVALID in second).


  • FoxDev

    fair enough. I assumed JIRA because that's what we use here at work.

    But still, i seem to recall you could create custom resolution types in bugzilla too. we certainly have a bunch of those to better categorize solutions (mostly for helpdesk which shares a JIRA install with IT for various WTF reasons, the first two i mentioned originally come directly from our JIRA system for this very reason)


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