44 Rules for Server Administration

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The recent German Linux Magazin had a nice article about rules for server administration.

basics:

1. use different machines for services which need the same performance resources
2. monitor your services
3. limit your swap processes
4. do not waste memory installing unneeded applications
5. separate partitions for system, logs and data
6. log everything
7. save the configuration before any change
8. keep static content in the cache
9. stop intruders at the firewall
10. use port knocking

web server:

1. choose the multi-processing module which fits your CPUs
2. use caching
3. limit usage of .htaccess
4. do not use symbolic links
5. do not use lookups
6. optimize MaxClients
7. do not log everything
8. use sendfile
9. use MMAP
10. switch of server-status

mail server:

1. limit the number of instances
2. use the spam filter enabled RAM disk
3. cache DNS requests
4. use postfix only once per mail
5. use reject_unkown_sender_domain
6. only use local data for postfix lookups
7. use rate limiting for clients
8. kick problematic mails

database server:

1. use the correct index type
2. delete an unneeded index
3. optimize your tables
4. optimize your SQL statements
5. use soft parsing
6. limit the size of your tables
7. separate OLTP and DSS
8. use persistent connections
9. be careful with the timing of batch jobs
10. monitor the number of connections

samba:

1. do not touch your configuration
2. provide enough RAM
3. monitor the network
4. activate Oplocks
5. use Winbind
6. deactivate "case sensitive"

Read the article it is really nice.