From: Michael Field - NC Systems Server Engineering - SUN Ireland (Michael.Field at domain Ireland.Sun.COM)
Date: Thu 30 Sep 1999 - 10:09:05 IST
Hi folks,
This is a bit OT but I'm sure at the very least someone will get a laugh out of
it. (Everyone here at work has done already)
About a year ago I installed an ISDN router (3COM) in a small school in North
Cork. (Network of around 30 win9x boxes, all switched off every evening)
Everything went fine for about a year until I set up another router (this time a
Linux box) routing between that network and another one. This was early July so,
as the school was after closing up for holidays, I powered everything down
before I left.
However, I forgot to plug out the router.....
About three months later I got a phone-call at work saying that an ISDN bill had
arrived for the sum of £5.5k
So I said (well, absolutely nothing for about ten minutes) "Get an itemised
bill." I'm not kidding: The fscking thing nearly had to be delivered by
fork-lift. It was about as thick as 2 telephone directories. It appeared that
our router, in some kind of rabid frenzy, had started connecting to the ISP,
holding on for about 30 sec., hanging up and repeating the process *constantly*
for about 3 months.
The second thing I said (on the phone to the school's principal) was "Plug out
the F***ing router!". Last week I plugged the router back in and monitored it
for about half an hour and observed no such behavior. So I left it plugged in
and went to the pub for an hour, but when I came back and checked the call
history, it appeared it had remained sane in my absence. The story was the same
when I left it plugged in all night.
On Tuesday the principal of the school went to meet the good people in Eircom
and explained what had happened and how it would take a quarter of their annual
budget to pay the bill. The Eircom folks said that this had happened before, in
schools and businesses and that the hardware installer's insurers had usually
picked up the tab............
Has this happened any of ye before? Could the fact that it seems to be a bit of
a regular occurrence indicate that it might be a fault with the line? Is there a
contract out on me in Cork?
Answers on a postcard,
Michael Field.
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