Adding a second disk and mounting it
A new volume does nothing until it is partitioned, formatted, mounted and written into fstab. The four steps, in order, with the one that people forget.
5 min read
Changing the SSH port, and what it does not do
Moving SSH off port 22 empties your log of noise. It is not a security control, and treating it as one is how servers get taken.
4 min read
Cron or a systemd timer?
Cron is fine for simple jobs. A timer gives you logs, no overlapping runs and a catch-up after downtime. When each is the right answer.
5 min read
Shared, VPS or dedicated - which one you need
Not a ladder you climb by size. Three different answers to three different questions, and most sites are on the wrong one for the wrong reason.
5 min read
A firewall that starts closed
Allow what you need and refuse the rest. The order of the commands matters, because one of them can lock you out.
5 min read
Setting the hostname and the FQDN
A half-set hostname breaks outgoing mail, fills the logs with sudo warnings and confuses monitoring. Set it in all three places at once.
4 min read
IPv6 on a VPS
Half-configured IPv6 is worse than none: the browser tries it first, waits, and only then falls back. Turn it on properly or turn it off.
4 min read
Reading load average
Three numbers that only mean something next to your core count - and what to look at when they are high.
4 min read
Locale and character set on a new server
Arabic that arrives as question marks, sorting that puts names in the wrong order and scripts that fail on an accent are all one missing locale.
4 min read
Logs that fill the disk
Rotation is configured per service, so a service added later has none. How to see which log is growing and set it up in one file.
4 min read
Changing Nginx config without taking the site down
Test, then reload. The difference between reload and restart is the difference between nobody noticing and everybody noticing.
4 min read
Why NVMe changes the answer
The difference is not the sequential speed on the datasheet. It is how many small operations happen at once, which is what a database does all day.
4 min read
The server is out of disk
Find what filled it in two commands, free space safely, and stop it happening again.
5 min read
Reading the system journal
Everything a systemd service prints goes to the journal. Five flags turn it from a wall of text into the answer.
4 min read
Rebooting safely, and what comes back
The risk in a reboot is not the reboot. It is the service that was started by hand months ago and was never enabled.
4 min read
Resizing a VPS without losing data
CPU and memory come back after a reboot. Disk needs two more steps, and the last one is the one people forget.
5 min read
Reverse DNS for a server that sends mail
The record that maps your IP back to a name. Without it large receivers refuse mail before it is even read.
4 min read
What to monitor, and at what level
Five signals worth an alert, the thresholds that give you time to act, and the rule that keeps alerts worth reading.
5 min read
Swap in use is a symptom, not a setting
Free memory near zero is normal and not a problem. Swap being written to is, and the two are easy to confuse.
5 min read
start, enable, and the difference
One starts a service now, the other starts it after a reboot. Confusing them is why a service is missing the morning after.
5 min read
A clock that is wrong breaks more than timestamps
TLS, tokens, cron and logs all depend on it. Three places set time and they do not have to agree.
4 min read
What 99.9% uptime actually allows
The number in minutes per month, what an SLA measures, and what it never covers.
4 min read
Users, sudo, and never working as root
Working as root means every mistake is total and no log says who made it. A named user with sudo costs two minutes to set up.
5 min read
The first hour on a new VPS
Six things to do before the server carries anything, in the order that leaves no window where it is exposed.
7 min read
What a vCPU actually is
Shared, dedicated and burstable are three different products sold with the same word. What each means for a site that gets busy.
5 min read