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Cleaning up your Linux server

Housekeeping

Article from ADMIN 40/2017

By Ken Hess

Even in the best environments, a little housekeeping is necessary.

Housekeeping is one of the many duties bestowed on the overburdened backs of system administrators, but it is one that keeps the house in order, keeps backups small, and keeps servers running efficiently. A full filesystem can stop services and disallow logins, so it is imperative that you keep a watchful eye on critical filesystems. To maintain a healthy system, you should spend a few minutes every day on housekeeping chores.

Three directories require special attention when you are tidying up your Linux space: /tmp, /home, and /var.

The /tmp Directory

The /tmp directory exists on every Linux system and is writable by every user on the system, which makes it vulnerable to file dumping and file sprawl (Figure 1). Many software programs write temporary files to the /tmp directory, which can be a problem for a system administrator when determining which files to keep and which to remove. When removing files from /tmp, you must use some discernment. Applications currently in use by users might have temporary files open, and the application will crash or throw an error if the files are removed unexpectedly. Also, a user might lose all their work since the last save point.