Help in a support session

This page is for whoever helps someone with their Maisnie. When they start a support session, you get their Setup pages and a check-up of their install for a set time, through a link they send you. You never get their passphrase, their passwords or keys, or their notes. What the owner sees on their side is on let someone help in a support session.

Getting in

The owner sends you a link. Open it in the browser you’ll work in and press Begin. The link works once: after Begin, that browser is in the session and the link is spent (opening it again in the same browser just takes you back in). If it says the link doesn’t work any more, it was already used elsewhere, the session ended, or the time ran out; ask the owner to start a new one.

The Setup pages show Support session, until the time it ends, in the owner’s time zone, and how many minutes are left. The menu has Setup, Settings, Check-up and End the session; nothing else is reachable.

What you can do

• The Setup pages and their plain settings. Change what needs changing and press Save and test where there is one: the check runs exactly as it does for the owner, so you can prove a fix before you go.
• Import a setup card you wrote for them; see write a setup card. Anything in it you couldn’t change by hand here (below) is shown as left for the owner.
• The check-up, at Check-up in the menu: the version, whether every part is up, the checks maisnie doctor runs, each source’s last run with its outcome, the newest lines of the run journal, and the last 40 lines of each of Maisnie’s logs (the front door’s, Setup’s, Home’s, remote access’s, and each source’s own), with every saved password or key, and anything shaped like one, shown as “(hidden)”.

What you can’t

• Passwords, keys, private links. Each shows The owner enters this, on this computer, where it comes from, and whether it’s set. If one is wrong or missing, tell the owner which one and where it comes from; they type it on their own computer while you wait, and then you can press Save and test. Whatever you might type into a secret’s place is thrown away.
• Where a saved password is sent. A source with a saved password keeps its server, port and username. You see them, with a line saying the owner changes them at home; a form that names another is refused. If one is wrong, tell the owner what it should be.
• Adding, removing or repointing an AI connection, or changing which one answers which kind of question. Every connection’s provider, address and program are the owner’s, key or no key, because questions and briefings carry the owner’s notes. You can still change a connection’s model names and spending limit, and press Save and test on it as it is.
• Their notes. Home, Ask, People, the briefing, search and every note are not part of a support session. Asking for one gets a page saying so, and the owner’s log records it.
• Their passphrase, remote access on or off, whether sessions from away may change things, protecting their stored passwords, their support log, another support session. Those stay the owner’s.

Everything is logged

The owner can read afterwards each page you opened, each setting you changed (before and after; secrets only as “set” or “not set”), each Save and test, and anything you tried that was turned away. Work as if they’re reading over your shoulder, because later they can.

Finishing

When you’re done, press End the session. It ends at once, for you and for the link; a change you were still sending is not saved. If you don’t, it ends on its own at the time shown. Either way, tell the owner what you changed and why; the log shows what, but only you can say why.