LiquidWeb Dedicated Server Support Rocks!

A rouge mail server started using my server to send tons of spam messages. After checking a few obvious things (rouge scripts on my server sending spam, users sending the spam, etc), I immediately submitted a ticket to the data center, LiquidWeb. Within 30 seconds, D. Walters responded to the ticket:

Hey Raam,

I'm logging into your server right now to check things out. If you're
still logged in, feel free to follow my work with this command:

screen -x dwalters

Regards,
D. Walters

I was already logged into the server, so I typed screen -x dwalters and sure enough, I instantly saw what he was doing on the server (I never knew this was possible with screen). I watched as he did various things, including installing a custom script that he wrote to help handle spam on server.

After a minute or two, he started typing something in the terminal that didn't look like any command I had ever seen:

web:~ root# Hey Raam, are you there?

Since I was attached to the same terminal as him, I was able to type back. Over the next 20 minutes we spoke back and forth several times and exchanged geeky jokes. I asked him a couple of questions and he showed me example commands that I could run to glean useful information from the exim logs.

The name D. Walters was familiar to me, as he had responded to several of my LiquidWeb tickets in the past. He was familiar with my technical abilities and knew that I was Linux savvy, so he invited me to watch what he was doing. He trusted that I wouldn't foolishly try typing in the terminal thereby interrupting what he was doing.

Dealing with someone familiar is important as it brings a feeling of trust to the situation. I compare the feeling to that of my auto mechanic; he lets me stay in the garage while he works on my truck. I stay out of the way and in return I get to stand under the truck, walk around the garage, and watch as he goes about his work. I simply wouldn't be able to do that if I went to a Chevy dealership.

The response time at LiquidWeb is second to none. I can always get someone technically able on the phone, 24/7. That person is always within walking distance to my physical server on the rack. Add those things to my recent experience and I can honestly say, LiquidWeb dedicated server support rocks!