Poll

Poll: Common Causes Of Downtime In Your Data Center

last updated in Categories Business, data center, Hardware, High performance computing, Linux, Poll, Storage, UNIX

Unplanned downtime may be the result of a software bug, human error, equipment failure, power failure, and much more. Last week was a bad one. We faced three different downtime:

  • First, there was a fiber cut for one of our data center resulting into routing anomalies due BGP reroute. Traffic was rerouted but updating those BGP tables took some time to update.
  • Someone from networking team failed to follow proper maintenance procedures for network device resulted into 55 minutes downtime.
  • One of our SAN hardware failure – Many internal UNIX / Linux web applications use SAN to store data including file server, tracking apps, R&D apps, IT help desk, LAN and WAN servers failed. This one lasted for 12 hrs. It was stared around midnight. The vendor replaced entire SAN hardware. Now we have dual stacked SAN as a backup device for internal usage.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post’s poll.

Poll: Your Favorite Scripting Language?

last updated in Categories Ask nixCraft, C Programming, Linux, Perl, php, Poll, programming, python, Shell scripting, Sys admin, UNIX

Like most sys admin, I’m lazy. I try to automate almost all things in order to save time. Inexperienced sys admin and help desk staff working under me finds all these tools useful. It saves their time and avoids security issues. Automation allows help desk staff to do things that they don’t have enough direct system knowledge to do themselves. However, selecting correct tool and applying correct methodology is very important.

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Poll: Your Remote Maintenance Services

last updated in Categories Poll

Maintenance services that give direct access to servers and devices for administrative purposes. Please vote your common remote maintenance services such as SSH, X Windows, VNC, and Microsoft Terminal Services etc:

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post at left sidebar, please visit the site to participate in this post’s poll. The poll is located on left sidebar.

POLL RESULTS: Do you use a firewall on dedicated Linux / BSD box?

last updated in Categories Poll

In last months reader poll I asked about Firewall on dedicated UNIX / Linux box.

Poll Result: Do you use a firewall on dedicated Linux / BSD box?

Do we really need a firewall?

Personally, I install firewall on all boxes to filter out unwanted junk and IPs; even if box is only running public service such as a web server. The overall idea is to limit access and reduce liability on my part if serer got rooted (read as compromised). Remember, bad boys never play by the rules.

Poll: The best way to learn Linux

last updated in Categories Poll

Our last poll asked readers of this blog the question:

How do you keep remote users out in emergency?

Thanks to everyone, total 789 people responded to the poll. Results are as follows:

  • 47% admin prefer to take down eth0 using ifconfog eth0 down
  • 29% admin prefer to deny access to all using iptables
  • 14% admin prefer to use old good /etc/nologin file using touch /etc/nologin
  • 10% admin prefer to turn off both ftpd & sshd service

Poll result - How do you keep remote users out in emergency?
(click to enlarge image)

New poll: The best way to Learn Linux…

I am interested to see, how all of you started to learn Linux. What is the best way to learn Linux? Did you enrolled in class or just grabbed Linux and start using everyday. Sure search engine, online forums, chat room and Linux documentation projects helps but just imagine somebody want to learn Linux and have no idea where to begin…

Hope this poll will throw out some light 😀

Poll: How do you keep remote users out in emergency?

last updated in Categories News, Poll

Our last poll asked readers of this blog the question:

Which Webserver do you use?

Thanks to everyone, total 435 people responded to the poll. Results are as follows:

  • 66% users are using Apache v2.2.x web server
  • 11% uses are using Apache v1.3x web server
  • 8% users are using Microsoft IIS v5/6 web server
  • 6% users are using lighttpd web server

I guess apache rules when it comes to Web server.

New poll: How do you keep remote users out in emergency?

Last week I had some problem with 3 servers. Since I was patching system and backing up stuff I wanted to keep my remote user out for at least for 60-90 minutes. As usual I dropped the remote connections using /etc/nologin and turning off both ftpd/sshd.

Now I am wondering — how you guys keep remote users out in emergency? Let me know if you are using some other nifty technique.