If you've ever looked at your server and wondered why it's using swap even though plenty of RAM is available, you're not alone. This is a common scenario on Linux systems, and it can impact performance if not addressed. Continue reading...
Hayden James
https://haydenjames.io/ · 30 posts · history since 2026 · active
20 Jul
17 Jul
Hard links and soft links in Linux both use the ln command but behave very differently. This practical guide explains exactly how each works, when to use which, and how to avoid the common pitfalls that catch even experienced sysadmins. Continue reading...
6 Jul
Servers give you warnings before they fail. Most sysadmins performing Linux server monitoring miss them because they're watching the wrong numbers. The metrics that actually matter are one level deeper: iowait instead of CPU percentage, active swap paging instead of memory usage, inode counts instead of just disk space. Continue reading...
Linux is a powerful and versatile operating system that can be used for a wide range of purposes. For many system administrators, the command line interface is the primary way to interact with the system. Continue reading...
29 Jun
In 2023 I published 50 mind-blowing ways AI will reshape our world in 2024. It came out of a long dinner conversation about where AI was heading, and I wrote it half expecting to look naive a year later. Continue reading...
Update (one year later): The verdict is in. I went with the TP-Link SG2210XMP-M2, and after a full year in the rack it's been running flawlessly: fanless, multigig, VLANs and not a single issue. Continue reading...
22 Jun
This article is inspired by our LinuxCommunity.io forum discussion thread (thanks to users @tmick and @shybry747 for the feedback). Let's walk through what Podman is and how to use it as a Docker alternative on Linux. Continue reading...
Last week I walked into an empty 5 × 4 ft storage room. By the end of the week, that blank space held a fully functional network core designed to keep a small professional office online through power cuts, ISP hiccups, and future growth. Continue reading...
The watch command runs any Linux command repeatedly at a set interval and displays the output full-screen, making it one of the quickest ways to monitor live system activity without writing a script. This guide covers all the key options with practical examples for real sysadmin use cases. Continue reading...
11 Jun
I’ll admit, I hesitated a bit before writing this post. The whole point of this linuxblog.io and linuxcommunity.io forum is to bring together like-minded Linux users and professionals so we can troubleshoot, share ideas, and learn from one another. Continue reading...
10 Jun
Nginx TLS tuning won't fix a slow application, but it does cut handshake overhead and improve connection reuse, which shaves milliseconds off every HTTPS request. Continue reading...
8 Jun
tmpfs lets you mount a filesystem entirely in RAM. Here is how Linux already uses it, how to create your own mounts, and where it actually makes sense to use one. Continue reading...
7 Jun
Every so often, something surfaces in the LinuxCommunity.io forums that deserves a wider audience. Generally it is a question, a solved problem, or a quick tip. Continue reading...
6 Jun
A practical guide to Linux user and group management using useradd, usermod, userdel, groupadd, gpasswd, and chage. Covers real-world examples, common mistakes, service accounts, and safe account removal. Continue reading...
Let's take a quick look at how best to set up PHP-FPM for high throughput, low latency, and more stable CPU and memory use. By default, most setups have PHP-FPM's PM (process manager) string set to dynamic and there's also the common advice to use ondemand if you suffer from available memory issues. Continue reading...
5 Jun
Embarking on the quest to find the ideal home office, home lab or small business firewall device is akin to navigating a jungle, but let's narrow it down by setting the budget to under $300 USD. Continue reading...
3 Jun
Looking for the best Linux distro (distribution) to enhance your desktop or laptop experience? This article will guide you to what, I believe, are the best Linux distros for beginner, experienced, and expert users. Continue reading...
1 Jun
Two network interfaces are better than one. With Linux network bonding (also known as NIC bonding or link aggregation), you can combine multiple NICs into a single logical interface, gaining either increased throughput, failover redundancy, or both. Continue reading...
28 May
Fail2ban watches your log files and automatically bans IPs that repeatedly fail authentication, protecting your Linux server from brute-force attacks on SSH, web servers, and more. This guide covers installation, jail configuration, testing, and practical tuning to get real protection instead of just running defaults. Continue reading...
24 May
A practical guide to nmap on Linux covering host discovery, port and service scanning, OS detection, NSE scripts, output formats, and real-world command combinations sysadmins actually use. Continue reading...
21 May
A practical guide to Linux log files: where they live, how to read and search them with tail, grep, and journalctl, how to manage log rotation, and a real-world troubleshooting workflow. Continue reading...
17 May
After twenty years on the Linux desktop, more than a dozen distros, multiple desktop environments, a seven-year tiling window manager phase, and one detour through whatever I thought of as the stable answer at the time, I'm finally in a noticeably more comfortable place than ever before. Continue reading...
7 May
Learn how to write, manage, and troubleshoot systemd service unit files on Linux. From basic service definitions to hardening options, restart policies, timers, and real-world debugging techniques. Continue reading...
4 May
Over the last couple of months I've had performance issues with Cloudflare (CF) about 2 times, including today. That's a sentence I never thought I'd write, because Cloudflare genuinely doesn't have performance issues most of the time, and when they do, it's usually on the status page as part of a larger issue. Continue reading...
3 May
A practical guide to Linux environment variables: how to set, export, persist, and debug them correctly across shell sessions, user accounts, system-wide configs, and systemd services. Continue reading...
2 May
If you spend any time in Linux forums, you've seen DistroWatch's Page Hit Ranking cited as proof one distro is "more popular" than another. It isn't. Continue reading...
24 Apr
If the Linux desktop and applications on your thin and light laptop or low-end PC feel sluggish under a busy session, the usual suspects are slow storage R/W, not enough RAM, or occasionally a CPU bottleneck. But on machines with integrated graphics, there is a fourth bottleneck most people never check: VRAM. Continue reading...
22 Apr
A practical guide to Linux signals: how to use kill, pkill, and trap correctly to manage processes, reload configs, and write scripts that clean up gracefully instead of dying mid-operation. Continue reading...
21 Apr
A practical guide to Linux disk partitioning with fdisk, parted, and lsblk. Covers creating partition tables, formatting filesystems, mounting, and setting up persistent mounts via /etc/fstab. Continue reading...
20 Apr
Bash aliases turn long, repetitive commands into short custom shortcuts that load every time you open a terminal. Here's how to set them up, where to store them, and a practical set of aliases built for real sysadmin work. Continue reading...