4 ms·

> Why? Because it wouldn’t work. It’s completely infeasible for an moderate sized non-tech business because the “IT environment”, such as it were, of employees

by hug 4y ago

> Why? Because it wouldn’t work. It’s completely infeasible for an moderate sized non-tech business because the “IT environment”, such as it were, of employees homes is absolutely non-homogenous. You can, as an end-user IT support department, rely on basically only two things about any user’s home kit and ability to interface with it: they have power (usually), and they can probably get internet access via wifi somehow. Any other assumption about their home environment will prove incorrect in some wild way. I’ve run into users that don’t have Ethernet, or WPA2, or any kind of public IP, or next hop latency under 200ms, or more than 1mbps bandwidth. We have users that don’t have home Internet, and for the duration of WFH orders used their company provided phone as a hotspot. I’ve run into users who can’t promise that they’ll have mains power day to day. Even if the user does have Ethernet coming out whatever their NTD might be (and it might be exotic!) you can’t guarantee that they can follow any kind of instruction to set up a router: they are about as likely to end up without a functional internet connection at all as they are to get whatever box it is you give them to work. You also can’t even be sure your instructions will work for whatever it is you’re trying to do. Are you taking into account double NATing? Triple? Do you know that none of your users home ISPs have some kind of MAC whitelist on their NTD? What if their current router is built into some kind of HFC modem? This is not a problem you can solve the mass use case for and address the edge cases: it’s all edge cases, in my experience… and that’s if you’re operating in a single, highly developed first world country.

justsomehnguy 4y ago
> Are you taking into account double NATing? Triple? Usually this is not the problem... till some protocols what rely on port numbers. Like those used in audio/video conferencing. Then it's hell. Overall I want to upvote you twice. The only working way to provide a such thing would be to hand out the one with a mobile modem integrated, SIM inserted, configured, with WiFi SSID and password written on the case with at least 32pts. And still there would be problems.
- justsomehnguy 4y ago
  EDIT: Oh, and the power supply cord epoxied hard to the case, how did I forgot that.
  - c0nsumer 4y ago
    How will you handle for, or notice, intermittent power issues due to stretched power cords that are no longer intact internally? </sarcasm, but not really>
c0nsumer 4y ago
OP here, and yeah... You nailed it. Absolutely nothing can be presumed about home networks. Most folks seem to think that because their phone shows a good WiFi signal and apps appear to work that all is good. The stuff we ran into in the suburbs of a major US manufacturing center... Oof. I very quickly learned that a LOT of people really don't have much in the way of internet access at home. Some other stories: - The person who complains that a Windows 10 upgrade broke their application and they can no longer work. Real problem? Their home network connection was 2mbit symmetric DSL and the database they were working on would time out sending large results back to them. They seemed embarrassed by their connectivity and concerned about their job due to their internet access. After I managed to find out the real bandwidth and repro the problem, the site was fixed to work on low bandwidth and all was good. - Users presuming that data on their work-provided mobile phone was unlimited. They'd use it for work, but also their kids' school-from-home, and whatever video streaming... And when you try to push a few hundred GB a month through a mobile, it gets throttled. Key here was when they finally mentioned that they "have bought two other phones but they all have the problem too" as I was able to figure out what was going on. - Then the guy who was working from "home" but after a lot of digging I saw him VPN'ing from southwest Asia. Guy, I don't care that you hurried back to your home country when COVID hit so you could be with your family. Please just be honest with me when I'm trying to help you get working, because we have solutions for this too. (Eg: Remote work via virtualized desktop instead of trying to load big CAD models locally.) Hell, the number of sysadmin-type IT folks who are double or triple NATing, with bargain-basement "range extenders" in every room of their house, who then exclaim BUT I AM NOT A NETWORK PERSON when I suggest that is why their wireless at home flaps like crazy is unbelievable. Or probably not for you. ;)
- doublepg23 4y ago
  Any other stories you can share? I’ve started an IT Support job and theses are always useful.
  - c0nsumer 4y ago
    I'm glad you found this useful; thanks! Honestly, though, stuff just kinda comes up and pops into my head. I also need to be careful when sharing not to disclose anything that'd be confidential. There's random things on https://nuxx.net https://nuxx.net, but otherwise... Nothing comes to mind?

by hug 4y ago

justsomehnguy 4y ago

> Are you taking into account double NATing? Triple? Usually this is not the problem... till some protocols what rely on port numbers. Like those used in audio/video conferencing. Then it's hell. Overall I want to upvote you twice. The only working way to provide a such thing would be to hand out the one with a mobile modem integrated, SIM inserted, configured, with WiFi SSID and password written on the case with at least 32pts. And still there would be problems.

justsomehnguy 4y ago
EDIT: Oh, and the power supply cord epoxied hard to the case, how did I forgot that.
- c0nsumer 4y ago
  How will you handle for, or notice, intermittent power issues due to stretched power cords that are no longer intact internally? </sarcasm, but not really>

c0nsumer 4y ago

OP here, and yeah... You nailed it. Absolutely nothing can be presumed about home networks. Most folks seem to think that because their phone shows a good WiFi signal and apps appear to work that all is good. The stuff we ran into in the suburbs of a major US manufacturing center... Oof. I very quickly learned that a LOT of people really don't have much in the way of internet access at home. Some other stories: - The person who complains that a Windows 10 upgrade broke their application and they can no longer work. Real problem? Their home network connection was 2mbit symmetric DSL and the database they were working on would time out sending large results back to them. They seemed embarrassed by their connectivity and concerned about their job due to their internet access. After I managed to find out the real bandwidth and repro the problem, the site was fixed to work on low bandwidth and all was good. - Users presuming that data on their work-provided mobile phone was unlimited. They'd use it for work, but also their kids' school-from-home, and whatever video streaming... And when you try to push a few hundred GB a month through a mobile, it gets throttled. Key here was when they finally mentioned that they "have bought two other phones but they all have the problem too" as I was able to figure out what was going on. - Then the guy who was working from "home" but after a lot of digging I saw him VPN'ing from southwest Asia. Guy, I don't care that you hurried back to your home country when COVID hit so you could be with your family. Please just be honest with me when I'm trying to help you get working, because we have solutions for this too. (Eg: Remote work via virtualized desktop instead of trying to load big CAD models locally.) Hell, the number of sysadmin-type IT folks who are double or triple NATing, with bargain-basement "range extenders" in every room of their house, who then exclaim BUT I AM NOT A NETWORK PERSON when I suggest that is why their wireless at home flaps like crazy is unbelievable. Or probably not for you. ;)

doublepg23 4y ago
Any other stories you can share? I’ve started an IT Support job and theses are always useful.
- c0nsumer 4y ago
  I'm glad you found this useful; thanks! Honestly, though, stuff just kinda comes up and pops into my head. I also need to be careful when sharing not to disclose anything that'd be confidential. There's random things on https://nuxx.net https://nuxx.net, but otherwise... Nothing comes to mind?