Sysadmin tools

Converters, calculators and cheats for people who run servers.

Reading in this category

New York pauses 50MW+ data centers: what changes

New York is the first US state to pause new hyperscale data centers. Where the 50MW line falls, what is carved out, and whether any of it reaches your bill.

Linux file permissions explained: rwx and 755

How Linux file permissions work: the rwx triads, owner group and other, octal modes like 644 and 755, and the execute bit on directories that quietly breaks things.

MB vs MiB: why your 1 TB drive shows up as 931 GB

MB vs MiB, KB vs KiB: the difference between decimal (1000) and binary (1024) units, why a 1 TB drive reads as 931 GiB, and where Mbps and bytes part ways.

How to change file permissions with chmod

Change file permissions with chmod: chmod 644 for files, chmod 755 for scripts and folders, chmod +x to make a file runnable. The numbers explained, with examples.

How to manage services with systemctl

Manage Linux services with systemctl: status, start, stop, restart, enable at boot, and journalctl for logs. The commands you need and what enable --now does.

How to find files with find on Linux

Find files on Linux with find: by name, type, size or age, then act with -delete or -exec. The syntax, real examples, and how to delete matches safely.

How to extract and create tar.gz archives (tar)

Extract a tar.gz with tar -xzf and create one with tar -czf. What the x, z, f, c flags mean, how to target a folder with -C, and the bz2 and xz variants.

How to kill the process using a port on Linux

Address already in use on Linux? Find the PID with lsof -i or ss -ltnp, then kill it (kill -9 last). Steps, a fuser one-liner, and SIGTERM vs SIGKILL.

How to kill the process using a port on Windows

Port already in use on Windows? Find the PID with netstat -ano, then taskkill /PID /F to free it. Step by step, with the PowerShell one-liner and the gotchas.