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Server Monitoring & Linux
Dana
Dana writes about Linux server administration, infrastructure observability, performance tuning, and the operational discipline behind reliable systems. With hands-on experience running production Linux fleets — including Apache, Nginx, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Redis, Docker, and the wider open-source server ecosystem — Dana focuses on the practical side of monitoring: the metrics that actually predict incidents, the thresholds that cut alert fatigue, and the configurations that turn raw telemetry into useful signal.
Linux server administrationServer monitoringPerformance tuningDatabase monitoringContainer monitoringDevOps workflows
Blog posts by Dana
(21)- Server Monitoring·What Is PostgreSQL Monitoring? Metrics That Catch FailuresWhat PostgreSQL monitoring should look like in 2026 — the metrics that catch real failures: autovacuum, lock waits, replication lag, and TXID wraparound.
- Server Monitoring·Why Server Monitoring Matters More Than Ever in 2026Downtime costs businesses around $5,600 per minute. Why proactive server monitoring is no longer optional, and how to build resilient infrastructure.
- Server Monitoring·How to Monitor RabbitMQ Without Losing Messages or SleepRabbitMQ sits at the center of async systems. Here's which metrics matter, how production failures unfold, and how to spot them before customers do.
- blog·How to monitor WireGuard VPN Services?How to monitor WireGuard VPN tunnels: detect dropped peers, missing handshakes, and routing failures before remote users notice they've lost connectivity.
- blog·CoreDNS Monitoring: Best Practices, Top Tools & Expert GuideA complete CoreDNS monitoring guide: which metrics matter, the top tools to use, and best practices to keep DNS resolution fast, reliable, and observable.
- blog·Best Practices for Setting Up Server MonitoringBest practices for setting up server monitoring: which metrics to track, how to set alert thresholds, and how to avoid alert fatigue from day one.
- blog·Top 10 Windows Server Monitoring Tools in 2025 - CTO GuideA CTO's shortlist of the top 10 Windows Server monitoring tools in 2025, ranked by uptime visibility, alerting depth, ease of use, and price-to-value.
- blog·How to Monitor InfluxDB Server PerformanceHow to monitor InfluxDB server performance: which metrics matter (writes, queries, cardinality, memory), what to alert on, and how to spot trouble early.
- blog·Common Causes of Server Downtime and FixesThe most common causes of server downtime — hardware failure, software bugs, traffic spikes, network issues — and the fixes that keep your servers online.
- educational·What Is Server Monitoring? A Complete GuideA complete guide to server monitoring: what it is, the metrics that matter, the tools that work, and how to build a proactive setup that prevents downtime.
- educational·What is cloud server monitoring?What cloud server monitoring is, why the cloud doesn't remove the need for it, and how third-party tools give deeper visibility than your provider's defaults.
- educational·What is Disk Health Check Monitoring?What disk health check monitoring is, how SMART attributes predict drive failure, and why proactive checks save you from data loss and unexpected downtime.
- educational·What Is IIS Monitoring? Metrics, Tools & Best PracticesWhat IIS monitoring is, which Internet Information Services metrics actually matter, and how to keep ASP.NET and Windows web workloads fast and available.
- educational·What is Varnish Cache Monitoring?What Varnish Cache monitoring is, how this HTTP accelerator works, and the metrics that confirm your cache is offloading traffic and serving pages fast.
- educational·What is Docker Container Monitoring?What Docker container monitoring is, why containers behave differently from VMs, and the metrics — CPU, memory, restarts, health checks — you need to track.
- educational·What Is HAProxy Monitoring? Key Metrics & Best PracticesWhat HAProxy monitoring is, why load-balancer health is mission-critical, and the metrics that catch backend failures before users see a slow or broken site.
- educational·What Is MySQL Monitoring? Key Metrics & Tools to UseWhat MySQL monitoring is, the queries and metrics that predict trouble, and how proactive observation keeps your database fast, scalable, and reliable.
- blog·A Practical Guide for Minimizing Downtime in E-CommerceA practical guide to minimizing downtime in e-commerce: what causes outages, how to cut their cost, and the monitoring strategies that protect every sale.
- educational·What Is Redis Monitoring? Latency, Memory & Eviction MetricsWhat Redis monitoring is, why an in-memory data store needs different metrics than a disk database, and the signals that catch latency and eviction issues.
- blog·How metric monitoring increases server uptime?How metric monitoring increases server uptime: which performance signals to track, how to set thresholds, and how to act on data before downtime hits.
- educational·Server monitoring vs Uptime monitoringServer monitoring vs uptime monitoring: how each one works, what they actually measure, and why most production teams need both layers running together.
Knowledge base articles by Dana
(54)- DevOps & WorkflowHow to add a user to sudoers in AlmaLinux or Rocky LinuxGranting sudo on AlmaLinux or Rocky Linux is a one-liner — but the right shape of that grant (wheel group vs `/etc/sudoers.d/`, password vs NOPASSWD, all commands vs a narrow list) decides whether the next admin inherits a clean setup or a footgun. This guide walks through every common way to add a user to sudoers on RHEL-derived distros, how to verify the grant works, and how to avoid the classic mistakes that lock you out of the box.
- DevOps & WorkflowHow to Configure Jenkins with SSL Behind Nginx on Ubuntu 20.04Jenkins ships an HTTP server on port 8080 and stops there — no TLS, no professional URL, no port-sharing with the rest of your stack. The standard fix is to put Nginx in front of it, terminate TLS with Let's Encrypt, and bind Jenkins to localhost so the only path in is through the proxy. This guide walks through every step on Ubuntu 20.04 — installing Jenkins, getting a certificate, writing a correct reverse-proxy config (with the headers Jenkins actually needs), fixing the "reverse proxy setup is broken" warning, and avoiding the WebSocket and CSRF gotchas that bite people the first time.
- DevOps & WorkflowHow to fine-tune Linux kernel parametersLinux exposes hundreds of runtime knobs through `sysctl` — and most of the "tuning guides" you'll find on the internet are cargo-culted defaults from 2009 that may already be the kernel's default in 2026, or worse, the wrong answer for your workload. This guide walks through what kernel parameters actually are, how to change them safely, which ones genuinely matter for servers under load, and how to verify a change made things better instead of just different.
- Server MonitoringHow to fix the 403 Forbidden error in NginxA 403 Forbidden Nginx response means the server understood the request and refused to serve it — but Nginx rarely tells the client why. The cause is almost always one of five things: file permissions, a missing index file, SELinux, an explicit deny rule, or a misbehaving upstream. This guide walks through them in the order to rule them out, with the exact commands and the log lines that tell you which is which.
- Server MonitoringHow to fix the 500 Internal Server Error in NginxA 500 Internal Server Error from Nginx almost never originates in Nginx itself — the response is what reaches the client when the application upstream (PHP-FPM, Node, Python, Go) crashed, returned malformed output, or never responded at all. This guide walks through how to tell a real Nginx 500 apart from an upstream 500, how to find the root cause in the error log, and how to fix the most common culprits without guessing.
- Server MonitoringHow to monitor CPU temperature on Windows/Linux?CPU temperature is one of the first vitals to check when a server slows down, a workstation throttles, or a fan suddenly screams. This guide walks through the built-in and free tools to read CPU temperature on Windows and Linux, what the readings actually mean, safe operating ranges, and how to wire temperature into continuous monitoring so you find out before users do.
- Server MonitoringHow to set up and configure an NTP server on CentOS 7Accurate, consistent time is a hard requirement for log correlation, TLS, Kerberos, database replication, and almost every distributed system you operate. This guide walks through installing, configuring, and hardening an NTP server on CentOS 7 — including chronyd vs ntpd, peers and stratum, firewall rules, verification, and how to monitor drift before it bites.
- DevOps & WorkflowHow to remove a file from git historyCommitted a secret, a multi-gigabyte binary, or a file that should never have been tracked? Removing it from the working tree is not enough — git remembers everything. This guide covers how to scrub a file from your entire history with git filter-repo or BFG, and what to do afterwards.
- DevOps & WorkflowHow to rename a git branchRenaming a git branch is straightforward locally but takes an extra step on the remote and on every other clone. This guide covers renaming the current branch, another branch, the default branch (master to main), and updating tracking after the rename.
- DevOps & WorkflowHow to resolve merge conflicts in gitMerge conflicts are how git tells you that two changes to the same lines need a human decision. This guide covers reading conflict markers, the commands you'll actually use, three-way diff tools, conflicts during rebase or cherry-pick, and how to avoid the painful ones.
- DevOps & WorkflowHow to undo a git commitMade a commit you regret? This guide covers every common case — undoing the last commit, undoing a pushed commit, undoing several commits, and the difference between throwing changes away and keeping them in your working tree.
- DevOps & WorkflowHow to use git bisectgit bisect is a binary search through your commit history to find the exact commit that introduced a bug. This guide covers the manual flow, automating bisect with a test script, skipping unbuildable commits, and the etiquette of bisect on shared branches.
- DevOps & WorkflowHow to use git cherry-pickgit cherry-pick lets you apply a specific commit from one branch onto another — useful for backporting fixes, lifting work out of a long-lived branch, or pulling a single commit forward without merging the rest. This guide covers single commits, ranges, conflicts, and the common pitfalls.
- DevOps & WorkflowHow to use git rebasegit rebase replays your commits on top of another base, producing a clean, linear history. This guide covers basic rebase, interactive rebase for squashing and editing, conflict handling, the golden rule, and how to recover when a rebase goes sideways.
- DevOps & WorkflowHow to use git refloggit reflog is the safety net that has saved more careers than any single command in git. It records every move HEAD has made — every commit, reset, rebase, checkout, and amend — for about 30 days. This guide shows how to use it to find and recover work you thought you'd lost.
- DevOps & WorkflowHow to use git resetgit reset is the most misunderstood command in git. This guide explains the three modes — soft, mixed, and hard — what each one actually moves, when to use which, and how to recover when you've reset too far.
- DevOps & WorkflowHow to use git stashgit stash lets you shelve uncommitted changes so you can switch branches, pull updates, or test something clean — then bring the work back exactly as you left it. This guide covers the commands you'll actually use and the pitfalls worth knowing.
- DevOps & WorkflowHow to Install a LEMP Stack on Ubuntu 20.04Step-by-step guide to install a LEMP stack — Nginx, MySQL, and PHP-FPM — on Ubuntu 20.04, with server-block config, hardening, and TLS via Let's Encrypt.
- Server MonitoringHow to Monitor Dovecot with XitoringLearn how to monitor Dovecot IMAP/POP3 server connections, authentication rates, and mailbox performance using Xitoring.
- Server MonitoringHow to Monitor Exim with XitoringLearn how to monitor Exim mail server queue health, delivery performance, and connection metrics using Xitoring.
- Server MonitoringHow to Monitor Postfix with XitoringLearn how to monitor Postfix mail queue size, delivery rates, and bounce ratios using Xitoring's dedicated integration.
- Server MonitoringHow to Monitor CoreDNS with XitoringLearn how to monitor CoreDNS query rates, cache performance, and resolution latency using Xitoring for Kubernetes and cloud-native environments.
- Server MonitoringHow to Monitor OpenVPN with XitoringLearn how to monitor OpenVPN server health, active connections, and tunnel throughput using Xitoring's dedicated integration.
- Server MonitoringHow to Monitor WireGuard with XitoringLearn how to monitor WireGuard VPN tunnels, peer handshakes, and throughput with Xitoring's dedicated integration.
- Server MonitoringHow to Monitor Apache KafkaLearn how to enable the Kafka integration in Xitoring to track broker health, message throughput, consumer lag, and partition metrics.
- Server MonitoringHow to Monitor Microsoft SQL ServerLearn how to enable the MS SQL Server integration in Xitoring to track query performance, connections, lock contention, and resource usage.
- Server MonitoringHow to Monitor CouchDB DatabaseLearn how to enable the CouchDB integration in Xitoring to track database reads/writes, request rates, HTTP responses, and replication status.
- Server MonitoringHow to Monitor ProFTPd ServerLearn how to monitor your ProFTPd FTP server with Xitoring using FTP uptime checks and server-level metrics.
- Server MonitoringHow to Monitor InfluxDBLearn how to enable the InfluxDB integration in Xitoring to track query performance, write throughput, series count, and resource usage.
- Server MonitoringHow to Monitor MariaDB DatabaseLearn how to enable the MariaDB integration in Xitoring to track query performance, connections, replication status, and resource usage.
- Server MonitoringHow to Monitor Apache TomcatLearn how to enable the Tomcat integration in Xitoring to track JVM health, thread pools, request throughput, and session counts.
- Server MonitoringHow to Monitor IIS Web ServerLearn how to enable the IIS integration in Xitoring to track connections, request rates, bandwidth, and HTTP method breakdowns on Windows Server.
- Server MonitoringHow to Monitor OpenLiteSpeed Web ServerLearn how to enable the OpenLiteSpeed integration in Xitoring with zero prerequisites to monitor server load, traffic, and request handling.
- Server MonitoringHow to Monitor Varnish CacheLearn how to enable the Varnish integration in Xitoring to track cache hit rates, backend health, thread pools, and session metrics.
- Server MonitoringHow to Monitor ElasticsearchLearn how to enable the Elasticsearch integration in Xitoring to track cluster health, indexing rates, search performance, and resource usage.
- Server MonitoringHow to Monitor MemcachedLearn how to enable the Memcached integration in Xitoring to track cache hit ratios, memory usage, connections, and eviction rates.
- Server MonitoringHow to Monitor RabbitMQLearn how to enable the RabbitMQ integration in Xitoring to track queues, exchanges, node health, and message throughput in real time.
- Server MonitoringHow to Monitor HAProxy Load BalancerLearn how to enable the HAProxy integration in Xitoring to track sessions, request rates, error codes, and backend health in real time.
- Server MonitoringHow to Monitor KeyDBLearn how to enable the KeyDB integration in Xitoring to track memory usage, connected clients, throughput, and CPU utilization in real time.
- Server MonitoringHow to Monitor Supervisor ProcessesLearn how to enable the Supervisor integration in Xitoring to track process status, uptime, and set up alerts for managed processes.
- Server MonitoringHow to Monitor Docker ContainersLearn how to enable the Docker integration in Xitoring to track container status, resource usage, images, volumes, and networks in real time.
- Server MonitoringHow to Monitor MongoDB DatabaseLearn how to enable the MongoDB integration in Xitoring to track connections, query throughput, replication status, and resource usage.
- Server MonitoringHow to Monitor PostgreSQL DatabaseLearn how to enable the PostgreSQL integration in Xitoring with pg_stat_statements, track query performance, connections, and cache hit ratios.
- Server MonitoringHow to Monitor MySQL DatabaseLearn how to enable the MySQL integration in Xitoring, create a dedicated monitoring user, and track query performance, replication, and resource usage.
- Server MonitoringHow to Monitor PHP-FPMLearn how to enable the PHP-FPM integration in Xitoring to monitor process pools, request rates, memory usage, and worker states.
- Server MonitoringHow to Monitor RedisLearn how to enable the Redis integration in Xitoring to track memory usage, connected clients, throughput, and key counts in real time.
- Server MonitoringHow to Monitor Apache Web ServerLearn how to enable the Apache integration in Xitoring using mod_status, what metrics it monitors, and how to set up alerts for your Apache web server.
- Server MonitoringHow to Monitor LiteSpeed Web ServerLearn how to enable the LiteSpeed integration in Xitoring with zero prerequisites, what metrics it monitors, and how to set up performance alerts.
- Server MonitoringHow to Monitor Nginx Web ServerLearn how to enable the Nginx integration in Xitoring using stub_status, what metrics it monitors, and how to configure alerts for your Nginx web server.
- Server MonitoringHow to monitor Disk Health on Linux/Windows?A disk health check is the process of evaluating the condition and performance of a storage device, such as a hard disk drive (HDD) or solid-state drive (SSD). This includes checking for potential issues like bad sectors, wear and tear, read/write errors, and other signs of degradation that could lead to data loss or drive failure.
- Server MonitoringSetting Up Disk Space AlertsConfigure disk usage thresholds and alerts to prevent storage-related outages before they happen.
- Server MonitoringAvailable Server Monitoring IntegrationsXitogent supports 30+ service integrations out of the box — databases, web servers, message queues, and more.
- Getting StartedHow to Install Xitogent on LinuxStep-by-step guide to installing the Xitoring monitoring agent on any Linux distribution using a single command.
- Getting StartedHow to Install Xitogent on Windows ServerInstall the Xitoring monitoring agent on Windows Server using PowerShell or the MSI installer.