Google Confirmed Their System Is Designed So You Cant Directly Find The Person Handling Your Case

# Google Confirmed Their System Is Designed So You Can’t Directly Find The Person Handling Your Case: A Homelab Approach for Improved Customer Service

Welcome to our latest post, where we delve into the intricacies of self-hosted infrastructure and customer support. In this article, we will demonstrate how to build a simple yet effective system that emulates Google’s customer service workflow within your very own homelab setup. This project is perfect for experienced sysadmins and DevOps engineers looking to expand their skillset and improve the efficiency of their support infrastructure.

Prerequisites

• Docker CE version 5.0.8 or higher installed on Ubuntu 18.04 or later
• Basic understanding of YAML configuration files and bash scripting

Step 1: Setting up the Docker environment

sudo apt update
sudo apt install docker-ce=5.0.8 docker-compose

Step 2: Creating the project directory structure

Create a new directory for your project and navigate into it.

mkdir google-like-support-system && cd google-like-support-system

Step 3: Defining Docker Compose configuration (docker-compose.yml)

In this file, we will define our application services and their dependencies.

version: '3'
services:
  ticket-manager:
    image: your_ticket_manager:latest
    environment:
      - TZ=America/Los_Angeles
    ports:
      - "8080:80"
    volumes:
      - ./data:/app/data
    networks:
      - app-network
  support-bot:
    image: your_support_bot:latest
    environment:
      - TZ=America/Los_Angeles
      - TICKET_MANAGER_URL=http://ticket-manager:80
    depends_on:
      - ticket-manager
    networks:
      - app-network
  nginx:
    image: nginx:latest
    ports:
      - "80:80"
    volumes:
      - ./nginx/conf.d:/etc/nginx/conf.d
      - ./data/certs:/etc/letsencrypt
    networks:
      - app-network
  letsencrypt-companion:
    image: jetsetilly/letsencrypt-companion:latest
    environment:
      - EMAIL=your_email@example.com
      - DOMAINS=support.example.com
    networks:
      - app-network
networks:
  app-network:

Step 4: Configuring your custom ticket manager and support bot

Your ticket manager and support bot should be open-source projects that handle the creation, assignment, and tracking of tickets. Modify them as necessary to fit your specific use case.

Step 5: Setting up Nginx for HTTPS

Create a new subdirectory called nginx in your project directory and create an ssl.conf file inside it.

mkdir -p google-like-support-system/nginx && touch google-like-support-system/nginx/ssl.conf

Configure the SSL settings for Nginx in your new ssl.conf file.

server {
  listen 80;
  server_name support.example.com;

  location / {
    proxy_pass http://ticket-manager:8080;
  }

  ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/support.example.com/fullchain.pem;
  ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/support.example.com/privkey.pem;
}

Step 6: Running the application

Start your services with the following command.

docker-compose up -d --build

Your self-hosted support system is now up and running! Access it via https://support.example.com.

Troubleshooting

• Ensure that your custom ticket manager and support bot are functioning correctly.
• Check the logs of each service using docker-compose logs <service_name>
• Use docker ps to verify the running containers.

Conclusion By following this guide, you have created a simple yet effective self-hosted support system that mirrors Google’s customer service workflow within your homelab environment. This project is an excellent example of how DevOps principles can be applied to improve customer service and support efficiency. Keep optimizing your setup for performance and security, and share your improvements with the community!

For further reading on this topic, we recommend checking out official Docker documentation here and Nginx configuration guides here. Happy coding!