When you manage a server: DO and DON’Ts

Yesterday (Sunday) someone in my office decided that the production server needed a refresh. Just “few” things, including Apache, MySQL and PHP. Not everything went smooth as planned (?).

Server Maintenance DO and DON\'TsLet me write down some DO and DON’T…

 

  • DO Prepare yourself. Before starting check that you have everything you need.
  • DON’T start if you do not have EVERY password you need.
  • DO Test your upgrade on a staging server
  • DON’T install anything on the production server without testing it before in staging
  • DO warn everyone involved: they may be using the server
  • DON’T hit and run, calling everyone because the server is not working
  • DO plan the upgrade in advance, being sure that if you need help someone can be there for you
  • DON’T upgrade on Fridays, Saturdays or Sundays, unless everyone is working for that upgrade
  • DO backup first

 

In the end, yesterday downtime was limited, and everything is working perfectly again… but from this point of view Fabiana is right when she says I am a little “Control Freak“:

If you want to do something, do it well!

When you will have years of experience, when you will have done many many mistakes, when you will have erased server hard drives without backing up data… you will avoid the DON’Ts without much hassle.

But sometimes it will happen. Sometimes you will forgot and someone else will hate you a lot for at least five minutes! :D