01 Jan 10 Linux Consultant – Server Management, Basic Housekeeping

Server management is one of the most basic requirements in maintaining a healthy server/cluster, however, is often overlooked until something goes wrong.  In it’s most basic form, server management involves:

1. Checking log files for size and suspicious entries
2. Checking disk space usage
3. Checking memory usage
4. Checking for new packages (apt-get update; apt-get upgrade)
5. Check load and process list
6. Checking backups

If everything’s working fine, why bother? Well, packages are often upgraded because they contain security holes or other bugs. Often though, the upgrades just contain improvements or new features.

This process doesn’t generally take more than 30 minutes every so often, and not only keeps your server running well, but also keeps you up to date with the condition of and running software on your server.

Tags: housekeeping, server management

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