DevOps Troubleshooting: Linux Server Best Practices

by Kyle Rankin

“If you’re a developer trying to figure out why your application is not responding at 3 am, you need this book! This is now my go-to book when diagnosing production issues. It has saved me hours in troubleshooting complicated operations problems.” –Trotter Cashion, cofounder, Mashion

 

DevOps can help developers, QAs, and admins work together to solve Linux server problems far more rapidly, significantly improving IT performance, availability, and efficiency. To gain these benefits, however, team members need common troubleshooting skills and practices.

 

In DevOps Linux Server Best Practices , award-winning Linux expert Kyle Rankin brings together all the standardized, repeatable techniques your team needs to stop finger-pointing, collaborate effectively, and quickly solve virtually any Linux server problem. Rankin walks you through using DevOps techniques to troubleshoot everything from boot failures and corrupt disks to lost email and downed websites. You’ll master indispensable skills for diagnosing high-load systems and network problems in production environments.

 

Rankin shows how to

Master DevOps’ approach to troubleshooting and proven Linux server problem-solving principles Diagnose slow servers and applications by identifying CPU, RAM, and Disk I/O bottlenecks Understand healthy boots, so you can identify failure points and fix them Solve full or corrupt disk issues that prevent disk writes Track down the sources of network problems Troubleshoot DNS, email, and other network services Isolate and diagnose Apache and Nginx Web server failures and slowdowns Solve problems with MySQL and Postgres database servers and queries Identify hardware failures–even notoriously elusive intermittent failures

Genres: Technology, Technical

Kindle Edition

First published September 9, 2012

Reviews

[Ajitabh Pandey · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very well written book about troubleshooting Linux server problems. If you are a hands on systems administrator, experienced or still-learning, you will benefit from this book by your desk. Not that it explains solutions to all potential problems, but the approach towards solving a problem is what makes this book stand out.

[Roger · Rating 3 out of 5]

The good: 'Devops Troubleshooting' provides an outline of technical subjects and risk areas for supporting and administering infrastructure systems. Rankin's explanations are accessible, and his recommendations are clear and easy to follow.

The meh: Rankin's informal-yet-authoritative style will lead some readers to think of 'Devops Troubleshooting' as a solution guide. It's a practice guide, not a solution guide.

[محمد · Rating 3 out of 5]

Excellent book, the only downside is that it totally ignores systemd assuming that you will not face it that much ! Maybe at the time of writing the book this was the case, but this point deserves an update from the publishers, and this update was due about two years ago at least.

[Francesco Campanini · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not really for DevOps as this book does not mention any tool which is used by the movement. Also there is no reference to any Dev thing ... no python, no bash.
It is a good reference book but nothing more.

[Leroy84 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite good, missing a lot for more advanced users.

[Pablo · Rating 1 out of 5]

I only read a few pages when I encountered an oddity: the output of the top command in the book didn't match the output of the top command on any of my Linux installations. Looking into it the format was changed in 2011 and it solves a problem the book tells how to workaround. You can see the details here: https://serverfault.com/questions/103...

This made me distrust the book and reading other reviews finally abandon it. My hypothesis is that at least some of the content was written many years ago, never updated and that "DevOps" was added to the book later on to increase sales, as this book matches sysadmin troubleshooting, more than devops. This is just a completely unfunded hypothesis.

Instead I ended up reading UNIX and Linux System Administration Handbook which turned out to be a great book.

[Kai · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good book for advanced beginners who have a problem at hand and don't have the time to read the UNIX Administration Handbook and waddle through hundreds of pages of irrelevant theory just to troubleshoot some server issues. This book does justice to its title and goes straight to the point. Lots of practical knowledge distilled in 235 pages.

[Mohammed AlMatari · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is very good book for running the web servers. The problem I found in the book, is not providing the enough information for some chapters. The other thing is that, there are many basic unrelated information should be included in this book !

It helped me a lot.

[Simon · Rating 1 out of 5]

Very basic book on systems administration troubleshooting for Linux . Not a devops book at all.

[Evan Snyder · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short and sweet guide to Linux troubleshooting. Good for beginners looking for multi-purpose work flows for isolating issues and the most helpful commands for doing so.

[Gaurav Prabhu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simple & concise instructions. Teaches you how to troubleshoot properly. A good read for beginners & advance users as well.