The 5-Minute Server Health Check That Could Save Your Career

Introduction

Server health checks are critical for maintaining system reliability and preventing downtime. In this post, we’ll walk through a simple but effective 5-minute health check that every sysadmin should know.

Key Components

  1. CPU Usage Monitoring - Track processor utilization
  2. Memory Status - Check available RAM and swap
  3. Disk Space - Monitor filesystem capacity
  4. Service Status - Verify critical services are running
  5. Network Connectivity - Ensure connectivity to key infrastructure

Quick Implementation

#!/bin/bash

# Simple server health check script
echo "=== Server Health Check ==="
echo "Time: $(date)"
echo ""

# CPU Usage
echo "CPU Usage:"
top -bn1 | grep "Cpu(s)" | awk '{print $2}'

# Memory
echo "Memory Usage:"
free -h | grep Mem

# Disk Space
echo "Disk Usage:"
df -h / | tail -1

# Check critical services
echo "Service Status:"
systemctl is-active nginx
systemctl is-active mariadb

Benefits

  • Early Detection - Catch issues before they become critical
  • Peace of Mind - Regular monitoring reduces anxiety
  • Quick Diagnosis - Get system status in seconds
  • Career Protection - Prevent unexpected outages

Conclusion

A simple health check script can be your first line of defense against system issues. Run it regularly, log the results, and you’ll significantly improve your uptime track record.