CERN Accelerating science

On Lxplus you can get a list of all the existing "support" email addresses (with syntax Xxx.SUPPORT@cern.ch) by executing the command:

  phone support -limit 500 | grep "SUPPORT" | nl

In this article, we want to explain how all these "Support email addresses" behave and what users should or should not do.

Generic email addresses

When you do not know the email address of the IT service you need to contact, the recommendation is to send a mail to the "Computing Help Desk", at Helpdesk@cern.ch (or phone 78888). Either the helpdesk team will be able to provide an immediate answer, or they will address the query to the appropriate service for you, sending back to you a ticket number (that you will need to include in all your correspondence related to the same problem).

A frequent mistake that is made by users is to send problems to several email addresses in parallel. Such users think that, by sending the mail to several places, they have more chance to get a quick solution. This is not necessarily true (people who see that the mail is sent elsewhere may think that they do not need to reply and will let someone else do it). Instead it can lead to further issues, especially if one of the email address is a mailing list that include many members.

I will give a precise example to explain the problem: imagine a member of the CMS collaboration who wants to report a mail related problem; this user knows the three email addresses: cms.support@cern.ch, mail.support@cern.ch and helpdesk@cern.ch (all valid addresses); he is not sure which email addresses should be used in his particular case, and then he sends the mail to the three email addresses in parallel (for instance "To: cms.support@cern.ch" and "Cc: mail.support@cern.ch, helpdesk@cern.ch). What can happen?

• cms.support (or cms-support) is a mailing list (cms-support@cms-lb.cern.ch). It should be used for problems specific to the CMS computing environment. It contains many members and there is no posting restriction. A web archive of all mails sent to this mailing list is public and available at:
  https://wwwlistbox.cern.ch/earchive/cms-support/
• mail.support is the generic email address to contact the Mail Service team, via the Computing Helpdesk who filter all mails sent to them (to avoid disturbing the Mail team if not necessary). Consequently mail.support is a direct entry into PRMS. As soon as the helpdesk will assign the query to the Mail service in IT a ticket number will be returned to you (the sender of the mail).
• helpdesk is the address of the Computing Helpdesk and the mail is again a direct entry into PRMS. Most probably another person at the Helpdesk will get the mail, and will also assign the query to the Mail service in IT: another ticket number will be returned to you.

To avoid such problems, and an overflow of ticket creation at the Helpdesk and in our Problem Tracking System, a basic rule is:

Mailing list or direct mail-feed into PRMS?

An old rule was to try and reserve the character "-" (minus) for mailing lists, and the character "." (dot) for service account: e.g. atlas-support is a mailing list, and asis.support is a service account. Unfortunately nothing was implemented to "force" the rule and, for user convenience, some addresses do not "respect" it: for instance, both cms.support and cms-support point to the same mailing list.

However, in most cases, the answer to that question (is it a mailing list or a direct entry to the service?) is provided by the "Phone Book Form" (or "xwho service") at:
http://consult.cern.ch/xwho

For instance, using this form, do a "Start_search" on:

1. "CMS Support":
   You will get one entry registered in "Teams"; if you click on this entry "Cms SUPPORT" you can see that there is no account attached to it, and that the "valid mail addresses" are:
   cms-support@cms-lb.cern.ch for the "physical mail address" (or PEM) and
   Cms.Support@cern.ch for the "generic mail address" (or GEM).
   The syntax cms-support@cms-lb.cern.ch (for the PEM) corresponds to a mailing list.
   (N.B. Most mailing lists at CERN are on the listbox server, and then the syntax is: name@listbox.cern.ch).
2. "Mail Support":
   Again you will get one entry registered in "Teams"; if you click on this entry "mail SUPPORT" you can see the "valid mail addresses":
   hfilter@mail.cern.ch for the PEM and
   Mail.Support@cern.ch for the GEM.
3. "Computing Helpdesk":
   Still one entry registered in "Teams", and, for the "valid mail addresses":
   hfilter@mail.cern.ch for the PEM and
   Helpdesk@cern.ch or Computing.Helpdesk@cern.ch for the GEM.

Important:

All entries that do have hfilter@mail.cern.ch (e.g. "Mail SUPPORT", "Helpdesk", etc.) or prms-rmf@remedy01.cern.ch (e.g. "Design-Space SUPPORT", etc.) for the PEM, are "a direct entry in PRMS" (the Problem Tracking System), and then a ticket number ("CTnnnnnn" or "CT0000000nnnnnn") will be generated and returned to the user.

Otherwise, the generic address is a mailing list, or a service account. For a "service account" with a login id srvlogin the syntax of the PEM is srvlogin@mail.cern.ch, whereas for a mailing list, with a name listname the syntax of the PEM is listname@xxx.cern.ch, where xxx is the mailing list server. For most mailing lists at CERN today the server is called listbox and the syntax of the PEM is listname@listbox.cern.ch

On Lxplus, when you execute the commands:

phone -mail hfilter@mail.cern.ch | nl
and
phone -mail prms-rmf@remedy01.cern.ch -limit 100 | nl

Unfortunately the mailing lists are not visible in "xwho" unless (for some cases only) a service definition directly linked to this mailing list was made in CCDB.

If no service definition has been made in CCDB (the Computer Centre DataBase) then the mailing list is only visible in SIMBA, which is the web interface for CERN's mailing list service, at URL:
http://wwwlistbox.cern.ch/mmm_index.html.
For instance "Atlas SUPPORT" has no service definition. With "xwho Atlas SUPPORT" (or a search on "Atlas SUPPORT" in the Phone Book) you will not find anything, but, in SIMBA, if you make a search for "atlas", you will find the mailing list atlas-support@cern.ch.

If a service definition is registered for the mailing list, e.g. the service "Cms SUPPORT" linked to the mailing list "cms-support", then two generic email addresses are both valid and correspond to the same address: e.g. "Cms.SUPPORT@cern.ch" and "cms-support@cern.ch".

Conclusion

to contact the Computing Helpdesk, who will ensure your problem is correctly registered and followed-up.