It’s been too long; I’ve been so busy. I guess I’ll recap what I’ve done in these two years plus.
- Fixed over 100 incorrectly configured linux boxes so that they would actually send their admin the output of the logwatch command.
- Reconfigured the same to use ClamAV correctly and with consistent settings instead of the hodge-podge that they were.
- Built a custom monitor for a series of servers that allowed non-techs to determine if the servers in question were up or down. I’d come back to this
- Built a scripted installer for a 21 server farm, taking a 10-20 minute process down to a single command line. I’d come back to this too.
- Fixed the log backup system that had been in place for months. It’s still there now, but it needs to change.
- Got really into replacing complex manual functions with Bash scripts.
- Built the data import system for a whole client. SUPER complex and modular, didn’t use most of the code anywhere else save for the functions method.
- Got to know cron really well.
- Got to know ssh -t “command” really well
- Got lost in the weeds of random apps for random functions, the environment was becoming to large and entrenched to be managed remotely via a central console.
- Built an extensible console for managing the environment in part.
- Build Cache flushing tools
- Learned how to compile bash apps at the command line using shc http://www.datsi.fi.upm.es/~frosal/sources/shc.html
- This gave birth to a number of cool tools, remote fail-over tools that interacted with Cisco devices for example.
- The Web Console built earlier evolved and got better and better.
- Built automated localized monitors that could restart hung applications before remote monitors could catch the outage.
- Built automated localized monitors that could restart hung applications and NOT cause two systems to restart simultaneously.
- Installed DD-WRT a few times, lots of fun.
- Gave up some weekends
- Gave up some sleep
- Gave up Family Time
- Gave up Long Weekends
- Built a custom log handler for Apache logs, produced delightful daily csv from an environment, imported this into MySQL and created views to deal with that.
- Tried to hit the gym
- Got too busy for the gym.
- Trained up a replacement.
- Left things running okay.