Maintaining a long-standing client's Linux servers

A client I'd been doing phpBB work for since 2016 brought me onto their Linux servers: configuration, maintenance, security policy, backups, and a disaster recovery plan behind them.

The objective

The client wanted their Linux servers maintained, not just fixed when they fell over. The brief ran wide: configuration and troubleshooting, routine maintenance and system upgrades, performance monitoring, security policy, backups with a disaster recovery plan behind them, and written documentation of how each problem got resolved.

The documentation wasn't an extra they tacked on. On a server you're maintaining over time, a lot of the value of any fix is in the record of what you did and why.

What I did

I took on the configuration, routine maintenance and system upgrades across their servers.

I set up monitoring for system performance and connectivity, so problems showed up before a user had to report them.

I applied their server security policy and worked through reported bugs and performance issues as they came in.

For backups, I set up a documented restore path rather than the kind of backup nobody has ever tested.

And I wrote up the resolution steps, so the same problem doesn't get solved from scratch a second time.

The result

A seven-year phpBB relationship turned into a server-maintenance one. This same client had already hired me six times for forum work before this contract.