% How to ask good questions and report problems well % Ian! D. Allen -- -- [www.idallen.com] % Fall 2013 - September to December 2013 - Updated 2019-02-11 14:45 EST - [Course Home Page] - [Course Outline] - [All Weeks] - [Plain Text] How to Ask Good Questions and Report Problems Well ================================================== Learning how to ask good questions is a skill you need to learn if you want to get help from other people. If you have been sent to read this document, it is likely because your questions are too vague for me to answer. If you follow the advice in this document, I'll be able to help you more quickly, and you'll get better answers from other people. Be Very, Very Specific ---------------------- When you ask a question, the quality of the answer you get depends largely on how detailed and specific you are in your question. I can't help with or answer a vague question such as "I can't log in - do you know why?", or "Why do I get a time-out?" or "I can't do question 3" any more than a mechanic can answer a question "My car won't start -- do you know why?". You must be precise in your question, giving me as much information as you can about your situation. Things you might consider telling me when you ask a question: 1. Which assignment question are you trying to answer? 2. What have you tried already? What, exactly, did you enter into the shell or into the program? That includes exact keystrokes, names, addresses, configuration settings, etc. Tell me what exactly you used, not what you think you used; send me a copy of your command line or of your configuration settings. Tell me what your current directory was. Saying "I entered the information from the notes" is not helpful, since perhaps the notes are wrong, or perhaps you typed it wrong. What *exactly* did you type? What defaults are set in the program already? 3. What messages did the program(s) already give you? That includes the exact text of the messages, not what you "think" it said. Copy the exact text of what the program said into your question to me. 4. If it's a network issue, then: a. Where are you, physically? At a coffee shop? At home? At school (in which room or which lab at school)? b. Are you at home and/or using an ISP (NCF, TekSavvy, Rogers, Sympatico)? Cable, ADSL, or dial-up? c. Where are you on the network? On wireless? Direct connect? Using a VPN? d. Are you behind a firewall/router? e. Behind Network Address Translation (NAT)? If you are at home on a router behind NAT, you need to use to get your public IP address. f. Is the network working; can you access other Internet sites? g. To what system are you trying to connect, with what userid? Give me a copy of the exact address that you are trying, not what you *think* the address is. (Many people make spelling errors.) 5. What have you read to help solve your problem? Before you contact me, I expect you to read the lecture notes you took in class, the assignment (all the words!), and any posted class notes related to the problem. 6. If you use multiple machines, what machine and operating system are you using? Ubuntu Linux 12.04 on a Dell laptop? Windows XP on a home- built desktop machine? 7. What program(s) are you using? Command-line FTP? PuTTY version 0,60? Firefox 9.0? DOS window FTP? What version? Find Your Own Answers --------------------- For most questions, my job as instructor is to help *you* find the answer, not to give you the answer. Specific answers will change and become irrelevant over time, but knowing how to find an answer is always useful. You've already paid me, as a College instructor, to help you find answers. If you want me to actually *give* you the answers, that's called "private consulting" and the rates are much higher -- contact me after you graduate. You will get better at finding your own answers as you know more and become more familiar with search tools and asking the right questions. The first step is to realize that learning to find answers is a skill you can, and must, learn. Search the Course Notes -- READ ALL THE WORDS --------------------------------------------- Many questions are not new; other people have already asked them, and I've already incorporated the answers into the assignments and the course notes. Before you ask a question, make sure I haven't already answered it. Learn to search the assignments and course notes for your answers. You can use the page-search features of web browsers to look for keywords in web pages, you can search for keywords in word-processor documents, and you can use `grep` at the Unix/Linux command line to search many text or HTML files at once. (The `-i` and `-r` options to `grep` are useful.) Searching the assignment or the course notes is very efficient. You might be able to use Google to find your own answer on the Internet, but often Google hasn't indexed my course notes yet so the specific information you need won't be on the Internet yet. You will also find it harder to see the specific information that I give you among the billions of web pages that Google will suggest to you for answers. I usually ask questions based on material in the assignments and course notes. Check the assignments and course notes for answers, first. Asking Questions on the Internet ================================ For a slightly abusive but very thorough explanation of how to ask "smart" questions and get good answers from busy people on the Internet, read the classic document "How To Ask Questions The Smart Way" by Eric S. Raymond and Rick Moen: As their document says: They are not a help desk. Do not send them questions! Examples of Questions I Cannot Answer ===================================== ![[The quality of your questions reflects on you]][1] Here are some actual vague questions that have been sent to me that I would like to answer but cannot because the poser didn't supply me with enough specific information to help (e.g. what *exactly* they did): - i submmited my assignment3 again using winscp. couldnt stll access it at home.? *\[You give no information about what error message you got, or what your network connection is, not even your IP address\]* - I have been trying to log into my account on the Terminal application on my MacBook, but the password keeps getting denied. The password I was using was XXXXXXXX, as those are the last 7 digits of my Student ID, and I am trying on campus. *\[You don't say what userid you used to log in or what host name you were connecting to.\]* - I am getting the network error again and again. Please help me how can I fix this issue. I have a good internet connection. *\[You don't say where you are located or what your IP address is. You don't say what host name you are trying to connect to. You don't give anyone enough information to help you with your problem.\]* - i would like to inform you that my putty is not working since yesterday \[...\] and she told me that ask him to set your putty *\[You don't say where you are located or what your IP address is. You don't say what host name you are trying to connect to. You don't give anyone enough information to help you with your problem.\]* - I am having problem login to the server from off campus. It was fine in the morning. I am not sure what is the problem and received following error message. *\[You don't say where you are located or what your IP address is. You don't say what host name you are trying to connect to. You don't give anyone enough information to help you with your problem.\]* - I'd like to bring to your attention a problem with the Quiz/Test name checker. It keeps telling me that my name is incorrect when it most definitely is not. How do you suggest I proceed to complete Quiz #3? *\[You didn't tell me what name you actually typed to get that result. You don't give anyone enough information to help you with your problem.\]* - I am trying to upload the assignment; however, filezilla will not connect. I know that all info I put into the program is correct, because I logged off ot the CLS and re login and it connected. Do you have any idea why this wouldn't be working and how I could upload before the deadline? *\[You don't say where you are located or what your IP address is. You don't say what host name you are trying to connect to. You don't give anyone enough information to help you with your problem.\]* - "I am trying to access the server offline.but it is showing the error that host does not exist.please help me with this" *\[There is no such thing as an "offline" server in this course. (If a server is **offline**, then by definition you can't access it.) You don't say what server name you are trying. You don't say whether you are on campus or off campus. You don't give anyone enough information to help you with your problem.\]* - "I am unable to open putty on my computer. It is showing time out on putty server. I need to complete my linux assignment but due to the issue with putty I am unable to work on that. Please sort my problem out so that I can complete my work soon and prepare for my mid-term." *\[You don't say where you are located or what your IP address is. You don't say what network you are using. You don't say what host name you are trying to connect to that is timing out. You don't say what other errors you are getting. You don't give anyone enough information to help you with your problem.\]* - "I had a hard time logging in Putty, as soon as I would open it up the screen would just be black \[...\] I screenshotted the screen so you can also see what's going on with me, and if you can please help." *\[Your black screen shot shows the error message, but you don't tell me anything about your network or PuTTY configuration, so I can't know why you got that error. You don't say where you are located or what your IP address is. You don't say what network you are using. You don't show what host name you are trying to connect to.\]* - "My putty is not working. I click on on-campus it is only showing the blank screen. It doesn't work. Please help me." *\[You don't say where you are located or what your IP address is. You don't say what network you are using. You don't show what host name you are trying to connect to. You don't say what other errors you are getting.\]* - "I am trying to do the practice test 1. I have the network issue. I am at home and using the wireless network. I am behind the router. My IP address is IPv4 70.27.10.171. I am using putty 0.66. Whenever I try to open the putty, I only get one message"Network error, Connection timed out". Please, would u help me now to solve this problem?" *\[You don't say anything about what address you are trying to connect to. Your use of "u" instead of "you" is unprofessional.\]* - "My putty is not working off campus. I have attached the screenshot of message what I received while using putty. Could u help me to sort out that problem?" *\[You don't say exactly what server address you are trying to connect to, nor do you provide any of your home network information.\]* - "I just wanna to ask my putty software is not working at home. If I use at college, it works but not at home. I also select the off campus option but still it is not working. So, please help me." *\[You don't give the error message you are getting, or say exactly what server address you are trying to connect to, nor do you provide any of your home network information.\]* - "My putty software is not working at home. Why? I was using at college. It was working. But, If do at home, its not working" *\[You don't give the error message you are getting, or say exactly what server address you are trying to connect to, nor do you provide any of your home network information.\]* - "I am trying to login to the server from home and its not letting me. Yesterday on campus it was working fine, I don't know what I did wrong, if you can please help me so I can finish my assignment." *\[You don't say exactly what server address you are trying to connect to or what your home IP address is.\]* - "I am trying to login WinSCP with both my accounts in college and home.i get an error message.(connection error network refuse) Is there anything wrong with my account?" *\[You don't say exactly what server address you are trying to connect to, or what protocol you selected, or what port, or exactly what account name you typed.\]* - "I'm trying to login to the server but it seems to have a problem. when I open putty and I put the address server in, it open up as a white screen and a small brows says network connection problem." *\[What is "a small brows"? You don't say what server address you actually used or where you are located when you tried this\]* - "I re-did the instructions on Linux server. I followed the instructions and set up the dialogue box. did the login and entered my log in name as XXXXXXXX and pressed enter. a screen popped up n said PuTTY Fatal Error - server unexpectedly closed network connection." *\[You don't say what host name you used, where you were located, or what your IP address was\]* - "Hi I had a problem trying to log in on the server, I couldn't get the password right. I tried to do the log in again and doesn't work, I cant open the session, what should I do? I think I'm blocked from the server cause I tried to log in from my home." *\[You don't say what login name you used, what password you used, where you were located, or what your IP address was\]* - "I am setting up Putty. While on the step to login my normal blackboard login name seems to work but my password doesn't. Just wondering if it is something I have done wrong but I think I am on the right track." *\[You don't say what login name you used, what password you used, where you were located, or what your IP address was\]* - "When I try to mount my ext2 filesystem to my mountpoint (/mnt/point) I get the error"mount: can't find /mnt/point/ in /etc/fstab" After spending a large amount of time looking for a solution, I still can't seem to find one. Where do I go from here?" *\[You don't tell me what command you used, what is in your fstab, what device has your ext2 file system, or what /mnt/point is.\]* - "stuck on assignment 5, 4.7: so after looking it over again on my desk top my chrome on my laptop was being weird, however the command line example im suppose to find is there how ever it comes to 1 line 3 words and 17 characters in WC as apposed to 1,3,19" *\[If you don't tell me exactly what was in the file, how can I know why it might be wrong?\]* - "stuck on assignment 5, 4.7: i am using the search function on the notes as instructed and out of the 11"quote" and i am having a problem finding the command example used that contains *.txt" *\[I don't know what 'and out of the 11 "quote" and' means. You didn't tell me which of the 12 questions in 4.7 you are trying to answer, what notes page you are searching, or what search string you are using to search that page.\]* - "I've been stuck on trying to copy my abcd0001-txt file from inside the maze to my base directory, that's Assignment03 4.10 Part 2, I've been trying but it keeps eluding me, was hoping i'll get some insight from you, thanks" *\[You didn't tell me exactly what command lines you typed, in which current directory you tried them, or what error messages you got.\]* - "I am unable to login with putty this morning, receiving an 'Access denied' message." *\[You didn't tell me what actual server address you're trying to connect to, or what ports, or when, or where you were, or what your own IP address was that tried to connect, etc.\]* - "but the only location I can reach is the one without the tilde character" *\[you don't explain what "reach" means or what command you actually used\]* - "but the results I am getting are a bunch of -rw-r--r--" *\[you didn't tell me what you actually typed to get that result\]* - "I am at part 4.8 on the assignment 13 and when I use the mount command without any arguments I only get 6 lines instead of 7 like instructed. How is that?" *\[You didn't tell me what your six lines were or what commands you had used before that.\]* - "I get the error : `curl: (7) couldn't connect to host`." *\[You didn't tell me anything about what commands you actually typed to generate that error. You haven't told me about any network diagnostics you did to see why you couldn't connect. Maybe you spelled the host name wrong, but you didn't tell me what it was in your EMail, so I can't tell.\]* - "I am getting a permission denied message when I try to run or change my 'check' symbolic link file that I created at the beginning if assignment08. Is it normal?" *\[You didn't tell me anything about what commands you used, what directory you were in, what the exact error message was, or what question in the assignment you were doing.\]* - "I have been trying to connect to the course server with Filezilla since the weekend and still cannot get through. It states that the server is continuously denying me access, and I can't seem to fix it. Do you know what's happening? Status: Connection attempt failed with `ECONNREFUSED - Connection refused by server`" *\[You didn't tell me what server address you're trying to connect to, or when, or what ports, or protocols.\]* - "I am using all of the required information on putty which has been saved by default prior to opening. I am assuming I cannot log in because my home PC is locked out due to repeated incorrect passwords." *\[You didn't tell me exactly what address you tried to connect to, or when, or from what IP address.\]* - "I seem to be having some issues with the CLS. I got in for a moment and my password was wrong repeatedly... however now Im getting a **server unexpectedly closed network connection.**" *\[You didn't tell me exactly what address you tried to connect to, or when, or what ports, protocols, or program you tried to use to connect.\]* - "I have completed assignment two but am unable to connect to the secure FTP server to download the text file to submit through blackboard. Is it possible that the FTP server is down?" *\[You didn't tell me exactly what address you tried to connect to, or when, or what ports, protocols, or program you tried to use to connect.\]* - "I've rewritten this command a few times and won't stop getting the"file not found" message. I looked in a few places and can't seem to find /vmlinuz. Pls help." *\[You didn't tell me exactly what command line you used, or where you actually looked.\]* - "I am not sure on what to do, and I am looking for help. I know you say to read the full manual, I have and I am lost." *\[You don't say what question you are trying to answer, or what exactly you have read to help you.\]* - "I'm getting a 'Forbidden' error. Why?" *\[You don't say what question you are trying to answer, or what you typed, or what the exact error message was.\]* - "When I try to use the ISO the VM crashes. Why?" *\[You don't say what question you are trying to answer, or what you typed, or what the exact error message was.\]* - "I would like to ask you that in assignment 10 I have 2 warnings, so what should I do?" *\[You don't say what question you are trying to answer, or what you typed, or what the exact error message was.\]* - "So in an attempt to do my assignments, I attempted to log to the server via PuTTy and the information posted in the weekly notes. I have previously connected to do an assignment. However, this time around it keeps giving me a time out error and won't connect me to the server. I'm not sure what more to do, is this my error or is the server down?" *\[You don't say what question you are trying to answer, or what you typed, or what the exact error message was.\]* - "I have been trying to log into the Linux Server but am unable to do so. I am using Putty and have set it up as outlined Putty Configuration Section but my password doesn't seem to be working. Is there a login ID? I have been using what you told us as my password but it hasn't been working. Any advice?" *\[You don't say exactly what you typed into PuTTY, what login ID you actually used, exactly what password you used, or from where you are trying to connect (home or school).\]* - "i am unable to do"creating a Linux File System on a virtual Floppy disk and mounting/unmounting/ejecting it" part of the lab as my fedora doesn't detect any floppy disk image i created. Just so you know i guarantee you that I did read all the words and did follow all the steps correctly." *\[You don't say exactly what words you read or steps you followed. You've obviously left something out, but I can't guess what it is.\]* - "I don't understand why the checking program doesn't like this command. it gave me 100 files just like it asked for, and preserves time stamps. Does it have something to do with the way it's in the file?" *\[What question are you working on? What command is "this command"? What file are you talking about? What is actually in the file?\]* - "i don't seem to understand how to get the file count without piping it. I tried to look at the worksheet and try commands there but to no success?" *\[What commands did you try? Which worksheet did you look at?\]* - "I am at the part where I am supposed to use fgrep to find the dot character in special.txt but special.txt does not appear to be in my source directory, I even checked with the find command and it doesn't find anything." *\[What exactly is "my source directory"? How do you know that the file isn't there; what command did you try? What find command did you use? What output did you see?\]* - "I'm at the last part which is 4.8. I used the archive option -a to copy the DiskUse file is it the correct option? If it is the one why cant i access the medium directory? giving me the error"-bash: cd: medium: No such file or directory" *\[What was your current directory when you used `cd`? What directories were in the current directory? What was the exact command line you used?\]* - "I've been having some issues with the assignments. It seems all the work im doing on them doesnt show up in the checker. Could the issue be with older assignments that havent been handed in? Just wann know whats going on so i can do my work." *\[Which assignments? Which checker? What exactly did you type, and what did you expect?\]* - "i am currently stuck on scripting, the second part of the assignment and have no idea where to go from here as I am getting frustrated. Any ideas what i can do from here? I cant seem to get the script to work." *\[The assignment has seven numbered parts. The second part of the assignment (numbered 2) has the title "Purpose and Background". I don't see any scripts in that part. The assignment has five scripts in it, but you don't tell me which one is "the script". You don't tell me what you tried, or what results you got.\]* - "I'm currently at the changing password part of the assignment and I keep getting this error \[screen shot of error message\]" *\[You don't say what you typed as a password to cause that error.\]* - "Regarding assignment 03: I am trying to do the 4.8 section of assignment but every time its get fail. What to do with it" *\[You don't say what "its get fail" means. What exactly did you type, and what message did you get?\]* ![[Your server has problems; shut down and wait for the singularity]][2] -- | Ian! D. Allen, BA, MMath - idallen@idallen.ca - Ottawa, Ontario, Canada | Home Page: http://idallen.com/ Contact Improv: http://contactimprov.ca/ | College professor (Free/Libre GNU+Linux) at: http://teaching.idallen.com/ | Defend digital freedom: http://eff.org/ and have fun: http://fools.ca/ [Plain Text] - plain text version of this page in [Pandoc Markdown] format [www.idallen.com]: http://www.idallen.com/ [Course Home Page]: .. [Course Outline]: course_outline.pdf [All Weeks]: indexcgi.cgi [Plain Text]: 008_how_to_report_problems.txt [The quality of your questions reflects on you]: http://dilbert.com/strip/2011-07-21 [1]: http://assets.amuniversal.com/8f929d308a49012ee3c400163e41dd5b "The quality of your questions reflects on you" [Your server has problems; shut down and wait for the singularity]: http://xkcd.com/1084/ [2]: http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/server_problem.png "Your server has problems; shut down and wait for the singularity" [Pandoc Markdown]: http://johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc/