Daily Linux Admin Checklist

A scannable, practical one-page checklist for daily Linux administration tasks on Debian-based systems.

Overview

Use this as a quick daily walkthrough. It is designed to be read top-to-bottom in under 5 minutes.

Boot and Core State

• uptime — confirm load and uptime
• systemctl list-units --type=service --state=failed — no failed services
• systemctl list-timers --all — scheduled jobs are present and enabled
• df -h — no partitions above 90% usage
• free -h — memory and swap look reasonable

Updates and Hygiene

• sudo apt update
• sudo apt upgrade -y
• sudo apt autoremove -y
• sudo needrestart -r if available — services flagged for restart

Logs and Errors

• journalctl -p err -b — only unexpected errors should remain
• sudo dmesg | tail -n 40 — no hardware/driver errors at boot
• /var/log/auth.log — no repeated failed logins
• /var/log/syslog — no repeating fatal messages

Networking

• ip a — interfaces are up and expected IPs are present
• ip route — default route is present
• ss -tulnp — expected listeners are present (for example SSH, web, DB)
• ping -c 3 1.1.1.1 and ping -c 3 google.com — WAN and DNS are working

Services You Care About

• systemctl status ssh
• systemctl status cron
• systemctl status <app> — any critical app service is active

Backups

• Latest backup job completed successfully
• Backup size looks sane
• Backup destination is reachable

If Something Is Wrong