The 5-Minute Server Health Check Toolkit

Catch problems before they page you at 3am. $9, one-time, you own it forever.

A complete weekly health check system for Linux servers. Three production-ready bash scripts, a printable weekly checklist, and a decision tree for every warning the scripts can throw at you.

Based on the popular blog post The 5-Minute Server Health Check That Could Save Your Career, expanded into a tool you can actually use every Monday.

⬇️ Get the Toolkit — $9

What’s in the box

health-check-toolkit/
├── quick-health-check.sh   ← main script, run this weekly
├── disk-analyzer.sh        ← when disk is filling up, find what's eating it
├── log-watcher.sh          ← alert when error patterns spike
├── weekly-checklist.md     ← one-page printable checklist
├── what-to-do-when-red.md  ← decision tree for every red flag
└── README.md               ← 60-second setup + cron examples

3 bash scripts that you can run today on any Linux box. No dependencies to install. No frameworks. No SaaS subscription. No telemetry phoning home. You own the scripts, you read the code, you modify them if you want.

The weekly checklist is a single markdown file formatted to print on one page. Tape it next to your monitor. Run it every Monday at 8am.

The “what to do when red” decision tree walks you through every warning the scripts can throw. Disk at 90%? Memory leak? Load average spike? Service failed? Each has a documented path to resolution.

What the main script checks

Run ./quick-health-check.sh and you get a complete health snapshot in under 5 seconds:

  • Disk space — usage %, free space, top 5 largest directories under any path you choose
  • Memory — usage %, swap activity, OOM detection
  • CPU load — vs your actual CPU count, top 5 consumers
  • Recent errors — error count in syslog/messages over the last hour
  • Network — connectivity to 1.1.1.1 and 8.8.8.8, listening sockets
  • Uptime — days up, with warning at 90+ days
  • Failed systemd units — count of services that won’t start

Run it with --json for monitoring integration. Run it with --quiet to only see problems.

Sample output:

Server Health Check — web-prod-01
Sun Jun 28 08:00:01 UTC 2026  ·  Uptime: up 12 days, 4 hours

Disk Space
  ✓ Disk usage (/): 47%  (235G free of 450G)
  Top 5 largest dirs in /:
    180G   /var
     45G   /usr
     12G   /home
     ...

Memory
  ✓ Memory usage: 62%  (15820MB / 24000MB)
  ✓ Swap usage: 8%  Normal

CPU & Load
  ✓ Load average (1m): 0.8  Normal
  Top 5 CPU consumers:
    12345 www-data   12%  php-fpm
    ...

========================================
All checks passed

Exit codes: 0 = clean, 1 = warnings, 2 = critical. Use in cron + monitoring with confidence.

What it’s not

  • ❌ Not a SaaS. Nothing phones home. No accounts.
  • ❌ Not an agent. Nothing installs as a daemon.
  • ❌ Not an enterprise monitoring platform. If you want Datadog, buy Datadog.
  • ❌ Not magic. It’s a 5-minute check, not a full APM solution.
  • ❌ Not Windows-compatible. Linux only.

Who this is for

  • Solo sysadmins managing 5-50 servers who need a weekly check that doesn’t take all morning
  • Small IT teams that want a shared baseline checklist
  • Junior sysadmins learning what to look for on a Linux server
  • Anyone running a homelab with services that matter to them

If you have a real monitoring platform already, this toolkit is for the Mondays when you want a human-readable sanity check. If you don’t have monitoring at all, this toolkit is your Monday morning ritual until you do.

How to get it

Price: $9 USD, one-time.

You’ll get:

  • Instant download of health-check-toolkit.zip (12 KB, all 6 files)
  • Free updates for life (subscribe at the same link, get notified)
  • A 60-day no-questions refund if it doesn’t help

Ready to buy?

Pay $9 via Ko-fi, get the zip instantly. No account needed.

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Frequently asked questions

Q: Does this work on macOS? A: No — it’s Linux only. The scripts assume /proc, systemctl, ss, and standard Linux tools. macOS doesn’t have these.

Q: Do I need root access? A: For the basic checks (disk, memory, CPU, logs), no. For the systemd unit check, yes. The scripts gracefully degrade when run as non-root.

Q: Can I modify the scripts? A: That’s the whole point. They’re yours. MIT licensed. Rename them, tweak the thresholds, add checks — whatever helps.

Q: Will this work in my monitoring platform (Nagios, Zabbix, Datadog)? A: Yes — the --json output flag gives you machine-readable results. Exit codes tell you severity (0/1/2). Wrap it in whatever you already use.

Q: How is this different from the blog post? A: The blog post is the philosophy and the high-level steps. The toolkit is the implementation — three runnable scripts, a printable checklist, and a decision tree for every warning. The blog post gets you 30% of the way there; the toolkit gets you 100%.

Q: Can I get a refund? A: Yes, 60-day no-questions refund. Email pragmatic@pragmaticsysadmin.help.

What people are saying

“I run this every Monday now. Caught a runaway log file before it filled the disk. Saved me a Saturday of cleanup work.” — placeholder testimonial, will be replaced when real ones come in

License & support

MIT licensed — use, modify, redistribute. If it saves your bacon, buy me a coffee or drop me a testimonial.

Bug reports: pragmatic@pragmaticsysadmin.help

Part of the Pragmatic Sysadmin tool library — built to make sysadins sleep better at night.