Field notes

Keeping a small server tidy

Updated regularly

A short list of habits that keep a small personal server boring and reliable: pin versions, read the changelog before you upgrade, keep one backup you have actually restored, and write down what you changed. Most outages are self-inflicted, and most of them can be avoided by a five-minute note in a text file.

This page collects the notes I find myself looking up again. Nothing here is original; it is just written down in one place.

Reading logs without drowning

Start with the time window, then the service, then the error level. Filtering by all three before reading a single line saves more time than any tool. When a log is too noisy, fix the noise at the source instead of learning to ignore it.

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