Startup IT Troubleshooting

Runbooks for startups and small teams where engineers double as the IT department.

When to Use

You are the "accidental IT person." Nobody has IT in their title, but laptops freeze, Wi-Fi drops during investor demos, someone gets locked out of Google Workspace at midnight, and a new hire starts Monday with zero accounts. This skill gives you copy-paste commands to handle it all.

Priority triage: (1) Company-wide outages, (2) Executive/customer-facing blockers, (3) Team-wide degradations, (4) Individual workstation issues. Always ask: "How many people are affected?" and "Is revenue impacted?"

SSO / Identity Lockouts

Google Workspace via GAM

curl -s -S -L https://gam-shortn.appspot.com/gam-install -o /tmp/gam-install.sh && bash /tmp/gam-install.sh && rm /tmp/gam-install.sh  # install GAM
gam oauth create                                                     # authorize

gam update user jane@company.com password "TempPass123!" changepassword on  # reset password
gam update user jane@company.com suspended off       # unsuspend locked-out user
gam user jane@company.com signout                    # force sign-out all sessions
gam user jane@company.com update backupcodes         # new MFA backup codes
gam user jane@company.com turnoff2sv                 # disable 2SV (re-enable within 24h)

Okta API

OKTA="company.okta.com"; T="your-api-token"; UID="00u1abcdef"
curl -X POST -H "Authorization: SSWS $T" "https://$OKTA/api/v1/users/$UID/lifecycle/unlock"
curl -X POST -H "Authorization: SSWS $T" "https://$OKTA/api/v1/users/$UID/lifecycle/reset_password?sendEmail=true"
curl -X POST -H "Authorization: SSWS $T" "https://$OKTA/api/v1/users/$UID/lifecycle/reset_factors"
curl -X DELETE -H "Authorization: SSWS $T" "https://$OKTA/api/v1/users/$UID/sessions"

MFA recovery flow: Verify identity via video call, generate backup codes or reset factors, have user re-enroll immediately, confirm old device is deregistered, log the incident.

Network Troubleshooting

Wi-Fi Debugging

# macOS
/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/Current/Resources/airport -I
networksetup -setairportpower en0 off && sleep 2 && networksetup -setairportpower en0 on
sudo dscacheutil -flushcache && sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder

# Linux
nmcli device wifi list && nmcli connection show --active
nmcli device disconnect wlan0 && nmcli device connect wlan0
sudo systemd-resolve --flush-caches

netsh wlan show interfaces
netsh wlan disconnect; netsh wlan connect name="OfficeWiFi"
ipconfig /flushdns
netsh winsock reset  # full stack reset, reboot after

DNS Issues

nslookup company.com 8.8.8.8            # test against known-good DNS
dig @1.1.1.1 company.com                # Linux/macOS detail
sudo networksetup -setdnsservers Wi-Fi 8.8.8.8 8.8.4.4  # macOS temp override

$a = Get-NetAdapter | Where-Object {$_.Status -eq "Up"}
Set-DnsClientServerAddress -InterfaceIndex $a.ifIndex -ServerAddresses ("8.8.8.8","8.8.4.4")

VPN Not Connecting

nc -zv vpn.company.com 443                         # test port reachability
sudo wg show                                        # WireGuard status
sudo wg-quick down wg0 && sudo wg-quick up wg0     # restart WireGuard
tailscale status && sudo tailscale up --reset       # Tailscale re-auth

Slow Internet

speedtest-cli --simple        # bandwidth test (pip install speedtest-cli)
ping -c 50 8.8.8.8            # packet loss check
networkQuality -s              # macOS 12+ bufferbloat test

Laptop Performance

Disk Space

df -h                                    # volume overview
du -sh ~/* | sort -rh | head -15         # biggest dirs in home
docker system df                         # Docker disk usage (common culprit)
docker system prune -a --volumes         # reclaim Docker space
brew cleanup --prune=all                 # macOS Homebrew cleanup

Get-PSDrive -PSProvider FileSystem | Select Name,@{N='Free(GB)';E={[math]::Round($_.Free/1GB,2)}}
Get-ChildItem C:\ -Recurse -File -EA SilentlyContinue | Sort Length -Desc | Select -First 15 FullName,@{N='MB';E={[math]::Round($_.Length/1MB,2)}}

Memory Pressure and Runaway Processes

# macOS
memory_pressure
top -o rsize -l 1 -n 10 -stats pid,command,rsize
pkill -f "Google Chrome Helper"

# Linux

…