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I'm currently hand-held by data center technicians with regard to running my servers, but I'm thinking of branching out, and I'm wondering what I need to know.

Some things I understand I should be aware of, but not sure exactly how I should be aware of them:

  • Checking log files, specifically security logs
  • Keeping my system software, specifically the kernel (and others?) up to date

I'm basically wondering what your favorite little tip which you think every server operator ought to know, but many, if not most, don't.

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  • What is your backup solution? Does it cover bare-metal restore? Is it tested? All of these things are more important than log watching.
    – kmarsh
    Sep 16, 2009 at 12:05

7 Answers 7

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My favourite two things that are easy to overlook and give you hell are:

  • Time. A bad clock can give you lots of problems. This is especially problematic with virtual machines
  • Full disk. This can provoke from strange issues to not being able to log in.

Keeping your system patched should be easy. I suggest you use "stable" distros with long term support (meaning you get no updates to software beyond security patches and major bug fixes). These mean that their package manager 'update all' operation will probably be smooth and easy. You should also subscribe to the distros security mailing list and evaluate all messages concerning software you have installed.

You should also audit all means of entrance to the box, make sure that there are no unnecessary net-accessible apps running and that necessary net-accessible apps are properly secured (i.e. use encryption as necessary and have strong authentication).

Watching log files is somewhat overrated, but you might find packages that simplify this. E.g., Redhat Enterprise (and CentOS) install by default logwatch which sends you a daily report by email of your log files.

Also, for systems that need to provide services 24/7, you should set up monitoring and, if needed, fail-over measures.

Also, backups!

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  • Does CentOS fit this bill? I currently use RHEL, but I wouldn't want to necessarily spend the extra money to license it if CentOS works just as well.
    – Abraham Vegh
    Sep 13, 2009 at 16:28
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    Well, CentOS is nearly identical to RHEL, but updates have a certain delay, of course you don't get the support and other companies might not support it (i.e. Dell has 'unofficial' support). It depends. Of course if you have the budget and want to have corp support, go RHEL (or whatever distro with corp support), but CentOS is quite ok. Myself, I'm a Debian person, though, although I have adopted CentOS in my company and in my VPS.
    – alex
    Sep 13, 2009 at 18:42
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Document everything, backup the docs to multiple places.

Documenting everything allows you to forget that instantly. You can always look it up later when you'll need it.

Personally I find that my mind is sharper when it doesn't have to permanently bear the burden of static data.

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Set in /etc/mail/aliases

# Person who should get root's mail
     #root:     user

Change user to yourself or your email address. Now you will get any system notification deemed important enough to email root.

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Check your hardware. And keep checking your hardware while the server is running. Most Linux crashes are actually caused by hardware.

For each hard disk, use smartmontools to check it's S.M.A.R.T. status. Before using the disk, run a long self-test (takes around 1 or 2 hours):

# This command starts the test
smartctl --test=long /dev/sda
# This one to show the test status
watch -n 120 smartctl --log=selftest /dev/sda

Also, keep the smartd daemon running and pay attention to the logs.

Use redundant disks. Don't trust only one hard disk. Not all errors can be caught by S.M.A.R.T., and I say this from my own experience.

Also install mcelog and keep watching /var/log/mcelog. This tool logs Machine Check Exceptions, which are exceptions caught by the CPU. A normal, healthy system should raise no MCEs. Thus, if you see any MCE logged, there is something wrong (maybe overheating).

And remember: sooner or later, hardware will fail.

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Before taking a decision to branch, you should ensure you have enought knowledge for that. Have you?

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Check the health of your RAID volumes. For example AMCC/3Ware provides the utility tw_cli

Cheers

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Firstly, setup something like logwatch, and apticron to email you with log file reports, and lists of packages out of date. Log in whenever apticron emails you and apt-get update && apt-getupgrade (I'm assuming a debian derivative. The other linuxes probably have equivalents of apt-cron though). If you know where you'll be connecting from, you should block ssh from anywhere else bar that IP. If not, installing something like fail2ban should stop brute force attacks anyway.

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