Preventive Maintenance for Linux server

[Jorge Cocomess]

Greetings,

I need some ideas on what are the key on preventive maintenance on a Redhat Linux server. How often do we keep these logs, or if we can put in some sort of monitoring ability to these Linux servers. Any ideas?

Thanks,
Jorge

[Ivan Ferreira · Accepted solution]

Preventive (software) maintenance could include:

- Patch notification subscription and installation (RHN)
- Security checks (nessus)
- Log analysis (logwatch, awstats, webalyzer, sarg)
- File system space monitoring
- Resource control with software like Nagios

[Steven E. Protter]

Shalom Jorge,

1) PM includes making sure dust buildup in the fans and in the case is not too bad. How often depends on the environment. I've got some servers running over a year without reboot.

2) Use logrotate to compress and maintain copies of important log files.

3) Run a utility like snort to watch for intrusion attempts.

4) Everything Ivan Said.

5) Have operations and yourself regular review log files.

6) Write a script to run on cron to look for obvious issues, including full filesystems.

SEP

[Jorge Cocomess]

Thanks, guys!!

What is one or two key things that I could do right away without spending any $$$ at this time?

Regards,
J

[Steven E. Protter]

Jorge,

Welcome to the world of Linux. None of the above options cost any software dollars.

All you need to do is download the software, preferably rpm and install it into your system.

I recommend http://rpmfind.net

SEP

[Alan_152]

1) get yourself a copy of nemeth et al's "UNIX System Administration Handbook" and 'Linux Administration Handbook". In those volumes you'll find plenty of logging, debugging, and maintenance scripts to work with.

2) schedule cron jobs to do once-a-month reboots, log archiving, COPS/ORACLE, and other maintenance/security chores.

3) scedule regular backups to nearline and offline media.