Server Management

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Overview

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What This Skill Provides

• Process Management: PM2, systemd, Docker, Kubernetes selection
• Monitoring Principles: What to monitor and alert strategies
• Log Management: Logging strategy and rotation
• Scaling Decisions: When and how to scale
• Health Checks: Implementing service health endpoints
• Security Principles: Server security best practices
• Troubleshooting: Systematic problem diagnosis

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Philosophy

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Process Management Principles

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Tool Selection

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Process Management Goals

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Monitoring Principles

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What to Monitor

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Alert Severity Strategy

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Monitoring Tool Selection

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Use Cases

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When to Use This Skill

• Setting up server infrastructure
• Implementing monitoring and alerting
• Troubleshooting server issues
• Planning scaling strategies
• Securing server environments
• Managing logs and processes

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Example Scenarios

1. Setup: “Configure PM2 for a Node.js application”
2. Monitoring: “Set up monitoring for this production server”
3. Scaling: “Server CPU is at 90%, should I scale?”
4. Troubleshooting: “Service keeps crashing, help diagnose”

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Log Management Principles

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Log Strategy

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Log Principles

1. Rotate logs to prevent disk fill
2. Structured logging (JSON) for parsing
3. Appropriate levels (error/warn/info/debug)
4. No sensitive data in logs

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Scaling Decisions

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When to Scale

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Scaling Strategy

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Health Check Principles

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What Constitutes Healthy

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Health Check Implementation

• Simple: Just return 200
• Deep: Check all dependencies
• Choose based on load balancer needs

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Security Principles

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Troubleshooting Priority

1. Check if running (process status)
2. Check logs (error messages)
3. Check resources (disk, memory, CPU)
4. Check network (ports, DNS)
5. Check dependencies (database, APIs)

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Anti-Patterns to Avoid

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Process Management Examples

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PM2 (Node.js)

# Start with clustering
pm2 start app.js -i max

# Zero-downtime reload
pm2 reload app

# Monitor
pm2 monit

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systemd (Linux)

# Start service
systemctl start myapp

# Enable on boot
systemctl enable myapp

# Check status
systemctl status myapp

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Docker

# Run with restart policy
docker run -d --restart=always myapp

# View logs
docker logs -f myapp

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Monitoring Setup

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Basic Health Endpoint

app.get('/health', async (req, res) => {
  try {
    await db.ping();
    res.status(200).json({ status: 'ok' });
  } catch (error) {
    res.status(503).json({ status: 'error' });
  }
});

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Related Skills

• deployment-procedures: Deployment workflows
• bash-linux: Linux server commands
• powershell-windows: Windows server management
• clean-code: Service code quality

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Which Agents Use This Skill

• devops-engineer: Primary user for all server operations

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Best Practices

1. Automate everything possible
2. Monitor from day one
3. Secure by default
4. Document your setup
5. Test failure scenarios
6. Backup regularly

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Resource Monitoring

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Key Metrics

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Tools Available

• Read, Write, Edit: For config files
• Glob, Grep: For searching logs
• Bash: For server commands