A curated list of amazingly awesome open source sysadmin resources.
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Awesome Sysadmin

A curated list of amazingly awesome open source sysadmin resources. You can check out other awesome lists as well. Please read CONTRIBUTING if you wish to add software.

Join the chat at https://gitter.im/n1trux/awesome-sysadmin

Automation

Automation build.

  • Apache Ant - Automation build tool, similar to make, written in Java.
  • Apache Maven - Build automation tool mainly for Java.
  • Bazel - Google's build system.
  • GNU Make - The most popular automation build tool for many purposes.
  • Gradle - Another build automation system.

Backups

Backup software.

  • Amanda - Client-server model backup tool.
  • Attic - A deduplicating backup program written in Python.
  • Bareos - A fork of Bacula backup tool.
  • Backupninja - Lightweight, extensible meta-backup system.
  • Backuppc - Client-server model backup tool with file pooling scheme.
  • Brebis - A fully automated backup checker
  • Burp - Network backup and restore program.
  • Duplicity - Encrypted bandwidth-efficient backup using the rsync algorithm.
  • Elkarbackup - Backup solution based on RSnapshot with a simple web interface
  • Lsyncd - File Monitor which spawns a process to synchronize the changes (rsync by default).
  • Rsnapshot - Filesystem Snapshotting Utility.
  • SafeKeep - Centralized pull-based backup using rdiff-backup.
  • Snebu Snapshot backup with global multi-client deduplication and transparent compression.
  • UrBackup - Another client-server backup system.
  • DREBS - AWS EBS backup script that supports strategies.
  • ZBackup - A versatile deduplicating backup tool.

Build and software organization tools

Build and software organization tools.

  • EasyBuild - EasyBuild builds software and modulefiles for High Performance Computing (HPC) systems in an efficient way.
  • environment-modules Lmod - Lmod is a Lua based module system that easily handles the MODULEPATH Hierarchical problem.
  • environment-modules Tcl/C - The Environment Modules package provides for the dynamic modification of a user's environment via modulefiles.
  • HPCBIOS - HPCBIOS is an effort to setup a common, well-documented and reproducible, environment spanning across multiple HPC systems & sites, inclusive of documentation.

ChatOps

Conversation-driven development and management. See http://www.reddit.com/r/chatops for more information.

  • CloudBot - The simple, fast, expandable Python IRC bot.
  • Eggdrop - the world's most popular IRC bot, designed for flexibility and ease of use, and is freely distributable under the GNU GPL.
  • Err - a plugin based chatbot designed to be easily deployable, extensible and maintainable.
  • Hubot - A customizable, life embetterment robot.
  • Lazlo - A chatops automation framework in Go.
  • Lita - A robot companion for your company's chat room.

Client management

Managing software on desktop computers.

  • OCS Inventory NG - Inventory, deployment and network scan.
  • Opsi (open PC server integration) - Client Management for Windows based on Debian.
  • WAPT - Network-wide (un)installation, configuration and upgrades of Windows based software.
  • WPKG - Software deployment, upgrade and removal program for Windows.

Cloning

Cloning software.

  • Clonezilla - Partition and disk imaging/cloning program.
  • Fog - Another computer cloning solution.

Cloud Computing

  • AppScale - Cloud software with Google App Engine compatibility.
  • Archipel - Manage and supervise virtual machines using Libvirt.
  • CloudStack - Cloud computing software for creating, managing, and deploying infrastructure cloud services.
  • Cobbler - Cobbler is a Linux installation server that allows for rapid setup of network installation environments.
  • Cracow Cloud One - Polish Private Cloud - The CC1 system provides a complete solution for Private Cloud Computing.
  • Eucalyptus - Private cloud software with AWS compatibility.
  • Flynn - PaaS
  • Mesos - Develop and run resource-efficient distributed systems.
  • OpenNebula - User-driven cloud management platform for sysadmins and devops.
  • Openshift - PaaS product from Red Hat.
  • OpenStack - Build private and public clouds.
  • The Foreman - Complete lifecycle management tool for physical and virtual servers. FOSS.
  • Tsuru - Tsuru is an extensible Platform as a Service software.

Cloud Orchestration

  • BOSH - IaaS orchestration platform originally written for deploying and managing Cloud Foundry PaaS, but also useful for general purpose distributed systems.
  • Cloudify - TOSCA-based cloud orchestration software platform written in Python and YAML.
  • CloudSlang - Flow-based orchestration tool for managing deployed applications, with Docker capabilities.
  • Juju - Cloud orchestration tool which manages services as charms, YAML configuration and deployment script bundles.
  • MCollective - Ruby framework to manage server orchestration, developed by Puppet labs.
  • Overcast - Deploy VMs across different cloud providers, and run commands and scripts across any or all of them in parallel via SSH.
  • Rundeck - Simple orchestration tool.
  • Salt - Fast, scalable and flexible systems management software written in Python/ZeroMQ.
  • StackStorm - Event Driven Operations and ChatOps platform for infrastructure management. Written in Python

Cloud Storage

  • git-annex assistant - A synchronised folder on each of your OSX and Linux computers, Android devices, removable drives, NAS appliances, and cloud services.
  • ownCloud - Provides universal access to your files via the web, your computer or your mobile devices.
  • Pydio - Pydio (formerly AjaXplorer) is a mature solution for file sharing and synchronization.
  • Seafile - Another Cloud Storage solution.
  • SparkleShare - Provides cloud storage and file synchronization services. By default, it uses Git as a storage backend.
  • Swift - A highly available, distributed, eventually consistent object/blob store.
  • Syncthing - System for private, encrypted and authenticated distribution of data.

Code Review

Web Based collaborative code review system.

  • Gerrit - Based on the Git version control, it facilitates software developers to review modifications to the source code and approve or reject those changes.
  • Phabricator - Code review tool build by facebook and used by WikiMedia, FB, dropbox etc. Comes with an integrated wiki, bug tracker, VC integration and a CLI tool called arcanist.
  • Review Board - Available as free software under the MIT License.

Collaborative Software

Collaborative software or groupware suites.

  • Citadel/UX - Collaboration suite (messaging and groupware) that is descended from the Citadel family of programs.
  • EGroupware - Groupware software written in PHP.
  • Horde Groupware - PHP based collaborative software suite that includes email, calendars, wikis, time tracking and file management.
  • Kolab - Another groupware suite.
  • SOGo - Collaborative software server with a focus on simplicity and scalability.
  • Zimbra - Collaborative software suite, that includes an email server and web client.

Configuration Management Database

Configuration management database (CMDB) software.

  • i-doit - IT Documentation and CMDB.
  • iTop - Complete ITIL web based service management tool.
  • Ralph - Asset management, DCIM and CMDB system for large Data Centers as well as smaller LAN networks.
  • Sicekit - The systems & infrastructure encyclopaedia toolkit (based on mediawiki).
  • Clusto - Helps you keep track of your inventory, where it is, how it's connected, and provides an abstracted interface for interacting with the elements of the infrastructure.
  • Collins - At Tumblr, it's the infrastructure source of truth and knowledge.

Configuration Management

Configuration management tools.

  • Ansible - It's written in Python and manages the nodes over SSH.
  • CFEngine - Lightweight agent system. Configuration state is specified via a declarative language.
  • Chef - It's written in Ruby and Erlang and uses a pure-Ruby DSL.
  • Pallet - Infrastructure definition, configuration and management via a Clojure DSL.
  • Puppet - It's written in Ruby and uses Puppet's declarative language or a Ruby DSL.
  • Salt - It's written in Python.
  • Slaughter - It's written in Perl.

Continuous Integration & Continuous Deployment

Continuous integration/deployment software.

  • Buildbot - Python-based toolkit for continuous integration.
  • Drone - Continuous integration server built on Docker and configured using YAML files.
  • GitLab CI - Based off of ruby. They also provide GitLab, which manages git repositories.
  • Go - Continuous delivery server.
  • Jenkins - An extendable continuous integration server.

Control Panels

Web hosting and server or service control panels

  • Web hosting
    • Froxlor - Easy to use panel for Linux with Nginx and PHP-FPM support.
    • ISPConfig - Hosting control panel for Linux.
    • Sentora - Control panel for Linux, BSD, and Windows based on ZPanel.
    • VestaCP - Hosting panel for Linux but with Nginx.
  • E-mail
    • Postfix Admin - web interface to manage postfix mailboxes, virtual domains and aliases.
  • DNS
    • Atomia DNS - DNS management system.
    • PDNS Gui - WebGUI which aids in administering domains and records for PowerDNS with MySQL.
    • Poweradmin - Friendly web-based DNS administration tool for PowerDNS server.
  • Revision Control
    • iF.SVNAdmin - WebGUI to manage Subversion repositories and User/Group permissions.
    • SCM-Manager - The easiest way to share and manage your Git, Mercurial and Subversion repositories.
    • WebSVN - Opensource web subversion repository browser.
  • Virtualization
    • Feathur - VPS Provisioning and Management Software.
    • Panamax - Project that makes deploying complex containerized apps as easy as Drag-and-Drop.
    • OpenVZ Web Panel - Web panel to control your OpenVZ servers.
    • Virtkick - A simple orchestrator. Manage virtual machines or Docker containers easily.
    • WebVirtMgr - libvirt-based Web interface for managing virtual machines.
  • Server
    • Ajenti - Control panel for Linux and BSD.
    • Cockpit - New multi-server web interface for Linux servers written in C.
    • Virtualmin - Control panel for Linux based on webmin.
    • Webmin - Linux server control panel.
  • Others

Deployment Automation

Tools and scripts to support deployments to your servers.

  • Capistrano - Deploy your application to any number of machines simultaneously, in sequence or as a rolling set via SSH (rake based).
  • Fabric - Python library and cli tool for streamlining the use of SSH for application deployment or systems administration tasks.
  • Mina - Really fast deployer and server automation tool (rake based).
  • Rocketeer - PHP task runner and deployment tool.
  • Vlad the Deployer - Deployment automation (rake based).

Distributed Filesystems

Network distributed filesystems.

  • Ceph - Distributed object store and file system.
  • DRBD - Distributed Replicated Block Device.
  • LeoFS - Unstructured object/data storage and a highly available, distributed, eventually consistent storage system.
  • GlusterFS - Scale-out network-attached storage file system.
  • HDFS - Distributed, scalable, and portable file-system written in Java for the Hadoop framework.
  • Lustre - Parallel distributed file system, generally used for large-scale cluster computing.
  • MooseFS - Fault tolerant, network distributed file system.
  • MogileFS - Application level, network distributed file system.
  • OpenAFS - Distributed network file system with read-only replicas and multi-OS support.
  • TahoeLAFS - secure, decentralized, fault-tolerant, peer-to-peer distributed data store and distributed file system.
  • XtreemFS - XtreemFS is a fault-tolerant distributed file system for all storage needs.

DNS

DNS servers.

  • Bind - The most widely used name server software.
  • djbdns - A collection of DNS applications, including tinydns.
  • Designate - DNS REST API that support several DNS servers as its backend.
  • dnsmasq - A lightweight service providing DNS, DHCP and TFTP services to small-scale networks.
  • Knot - High performance authoritative-only DNS server.
  • NSD - Authoritative only, high performance, simple name server.
  • PowerDNS - DNS server with a variety of data storage back-ends and load balancing features.
  • Unbound - Validating, recursive, and caching DNS resolver.
  • Yadifa - Lightweight authoritative Name Server with DNSSEC capabilities powering the .eu top-level domain.

Editors

Open source code editors.

  • Atom - A hackable text editor from Github.
  • Brackets - Code editor for web designers and front-end developers.
  • Eclipse - IDE written in Java with an extensible plug-in system.
  • Geany - GTK2 text editor.
  • GNU Emacs - An extensible, customizable text editor-and more.
  • Haroopad - Markdown editor with live preview.
  • ICEcoder - Code editor awesomeness, built with common web languages.
  • jotgit - Git-backed real-time collaborative code editing.
  • KDevelop - IDE by the people behind KDE.
  • Light Table - The next generation code editor.
  • Lime - Aims to provide an open source solution to Sublime Text
  • TextMate - A graphical text editor for OS X.
  • Vim - A highly configurable text editor built to enable efficient editing.

Identity Management

LDAP servers and other tools to manage accounts and identities.

LDAP

Tools and web interfaces

  • Fusion Directory - Improve the Management of the services and the company directory based on OpenLDAP.
  • FreeIPA - Security management solution, can manage LDAP, KRB, DNS, sudo, and more
  • LDAP Account Manager (LAM) - Web frontend for managing entries (e.g. users, groups, DHCP settings) stored in an LDAP directory.
  • Samba Active Directory and CIFS protocol implementation.

IT Asset Management

IT Assets Management software.

  • GLPI - Information Resource-Manager with an additional Administration Interface.
  • OCS Inventory NG - Enables users to inventory their IT assets.
  • RackTables - Datacenter and server room asset management like document hardware assets, network addresses, space in racks, networks configuration.
  • Ralph - Asset management, DCIM and CMDB system for large Data Centers as well as smaller LAN networks.
  • Snipe IT - Asset & license management software.

Log Management

Log management tools: collect, parse, visualize ...

  • Elasticsearch - A Lucene Based Document store mainly used for log indexing, storage and analysis.
  • Fluentd - Log Collector and Shipper.
  • Flume - Distributed log collection and aggregation system.
  • Graylog2 - Pluggable Log and Event Analysis Server with Alerting options.
  • Heka - Stream processing system which may be used for log aggregation.
  • Kibana - Visualize logs and time-stamped data.
  • Logstash - Tool for managing events and logs.
  • Octopussy - Log Management Solution (Visualize / Alert / Report).

Mail Clients

  • Claws Mail - Old school email client (and news reader), based on GTK+.
  • Mutt - Small but very powerful text-based mail client.
  • Thunderbird - Free email application that's easy to set up and customize.

Webmail

Webmail applications.

  • Roundcube - Browser-based IMAP client with an application-like user interface.
  • SquirrelMail - Another browser-based IMAP client.
  • Horde - Webmail and groupware client
  • Rainloop - Very nice webmail with IMAP/SMTP Support and multi accounting

Mail Servers

Software for setting up mail servers.

MDA (IMAP/POP3)

Mail Delivery Agents (IMAP/POP3 software).

  • Courier IMAP/POP3 - Fast, scalable, enterprise IMAP and POP3 server.
  • Cyrus IMAP/POP3 - Intended to be run on sealed servers, where normal users are not permitted to log in.
  • Dovecot - IMAP and POP3 server written primarily with security in mind.

MTA (SMTP)

Mail Transfer Agents (SMTP servers).

  • Exim - Message transfer agent (MTA) developed at the University of Cambridge.
  • Haraka - A high-performance, pluginable SMTP server written in JavaScript.
  • MailCatcher - Ruby gem that deploys a simply SMTP MTA gateway that accepts all mail and displays in web interface. Useful for debugging or development.
  • Maildrop - Disposable email SMTP server, also useful for development.
  • OpenSMTPD - Secure SMTP server implementation from the OpenBSD project.
  • Postfix - Fast, easy to administer, and secure Sendmail replacement.
  • Qmail - Secure Sendmail replacement.
  • Sendmail - Message transfer agent (MTA).

complete solutions

Software for simple deployment of a mail server, e.g. for inexperienced or impatient admins.

  • hMailServer - Open source e-mail server for Microsoft Windows
  • Mail-in-a-Box - Take back control of your email with this easy-to-deploy mail server in a box.
  • iRedMail - Full-featured mail server solution based on Postfix and Dovecot.
  • Citadel - Feature packed, easy, versatile, and powerful mail server, thanks to exclusive "rooms" based architecture.
  • Modoboa - Modoboa is a mail hosting and management platform including a modern and simplified Web User Interface.
  • Fufix - Fufix is a mailserver installer based on Dovecot, Postfix, Postfixadmin, Nginx, PHP, MySQL and Fail2ban.

Monitoring

Monitoring software.

  • Alerta - Distributed, scaleable and flexible monitoring system.
  • BandwidthD - BandwidthD tracks usage of TCP/IP network subnets and builds html files with graphs to display utilization.
  • Cacti - Web-based network monitoring and graphing tool.
  • Cabot - Monitoring and alerts, similar to PagerDuty.
  • check_mk - Collection of extensions for Nagios.
  • Dash - A low-overhead monitoring web dashboard for a GNU/Linux machine.
  • Flapjack - Monitoring notification routing & event processing system.
  • Icinga - Fork of Nagios.
  • LibreNMS - Fully featured network monitoring system that provides a wealth of features and device support.
  • Monit - Small utility for managing and monitoring Unix systems.
  • Munin - Networked resource monitoring tool.
  • Naemon - Network monitoring tool based on the Nagios 4 core with performance enhancements and new features.
  • Nagios - Computer system, network and infrastructure monitoring software application.
  • Node-Bell - Real-time anomalies detection for periodic time series, metrics monitor.
  • Observium - SNMP monitoring for servers and networking devices. Runs on linux.
  • OMD - The Open Monitoring Distribution.
  • PhpSysInfo - A customizable PHP script that displays information about your system nicely
  • Riemann - Flexible and fast events processor allowing complex events/metrics analysis.
  • Sensu - Monitoring framework.
  • Sentry - Application monitoring, event logging and aggregation.
  • ServerStatus BotoX - Display and monitor your servers statistics in a beatiful way.
  • ServerStatus moejda - Server Status website script, displays uptime (days), free RAM, free HDD
  • Shinken - Another monitoring framework.
  • Thruk - Multibackend monitoring web interface with support for Naemon, Nagios, Icinga and Shinken.
  • Xymon - Network monitoring inspired by Big Brother.
  • Zabbix - Enterprise-class software for monitoring of networks and applications.
  • Zenoss - Application, server, and network management platform based on Zope.

Metric & Metric Collection

Metric gathering and display software.

  • Collectd - System statistic collection daemon.
  • Collectl - High precision system performance metrics collecting tool.
  • Dashing - Ruby gem that allows for rapid statistical dashboard development. An all HTML5 approach allows for big screen displays in data centers or conference rooms.
  • Diamond - Python based statistic collection daemon.
  • Facette - Time series data visualization and graphing software written in Go.
  • Freeboard - A damn-sexy front-end real-time dashboard. Transforms raw JSON into delicious UI.
  • Ganglia - High performance, scalable RRD based monitoring for grids and/or clusters of servers. Compatible with Graphite using a single collection process.
  • Grafana - A Graphite & InfluxDB Dashboard and Graph Editor.
  • Graphite - Scalable graphing server.
  • InfluxDB - Distributed time series database with no external dependencies.
  • KairosDB - Fast distributed scalable time series database, fork of OpenTSDB 1.x.
  • OpenTSDB - Store and server massive amounts of time series data without losing granularity.
  • Packetbeat - Captures network traffic and displays it in a custom Kibana dashboard for easy viewing.
  • Prometheus - Service monitoring system and time series database.
  • RRDtool - Industry standard, high performance data logging and graphing system for time series data.
  • Statsd - Application statistic listener.

Network Configuration Management

Network configuration management tools.

  • GestióIP - An automated web based IPv4/IPv6 IP Address Management tool.
  • Oxidized - A modern take on network device configuration monitoring with web interface and GIT storage.
  • RANCID - Monitors network device's configuration and maintain history of changes.
  • rConfig - Another network device configuration management tool.
  • trigger - Robust network automation toolkit written in Python.

Newsletters

Newsletter software.

  • DadaMail - Mailing List Manager, written in Perl.
  • phpList - Newsletter manager written in PHP.
  • LibreMailer - Libre Mailer is a modest and simple web based email marketing application.
  • Lewsnetter - E-mail marketing application (create and send e-mail newsletter via SES). Includes subscription management, delivery, bounce and complaint notification, templates, and some stats.

NoSQL

NoSQL databases.

  • Column-Family
    • Apache HBase - Hadoop database, a distributed, big data store.
    • Cassandra - Distributed DBMS designed to handle large amounts of data across many servers.
    • Hypertable - C++ based BigTable-like DBMS, communicates through Thrift and runs either as stand-alone or on distributed FS such as Hadoop.
  • Document Store
    • CouchDB - Ease of use, with multi-master replication document-oriented database system.
    • ElasticSearch - Java based database, popular with log aggregation, and email archiving projects.
    • MongoDB - Another document-oriented database system.
    • RavenDB - Document based database with ACID/Transactional features.
    • RethinkDB - Distributed document store database, focuses on JSON.
  • Graph
    • FlockDB - Twitter's distributed, fault-tolerant graph database.
    • Neo4j - Graph database.
  • Key-Value
    • LevelDB - Google's high performance key/value database.
    • Redis - Networked, in-memory, key-value data store with optional durability.
    • Riak - Another fault-tolerant key-value NoSQL database.

Comparison of NoSQL servers: http://kkovacs.eu/cassandra-vs-mongodb-vs-couchdb-vs-redis

Packaging

  • fpm - Versatile multi format package creator.
  • omnibus-ruby - Full stack, cross distro packaging software (Ruby).
  • packman - Full stack, cross distro packaging software (Python).
  • tito - Builds RPMs for git-based projects.

Project Management

Web-based project management and bug tracking systems.

  • CaseBox - Manage all your organisation's information in one system.
  • ChiliProject - Fork of Redmine.
  • GitBucket Clone of GitHub written in Scala; single jar install.
  • GitLab - Clone of GitHub written in Ruby.
  • Gogs - Self-hosted Git service written in Go.
  • OpenProject - Project collaboration.
  • Phabricator Written in PHP.
  • Redmine - Written in ruby on rails.
  • Taiga - Agile Project Management Tool based on the Kanban and Scrum methods.
  • The Bug Genie - Written in PHP.
  • Trac - Written in python.

Queuing

  • ActiveMQ - Java message broker.
  • BeanstalkD - A simple, fast work queue.
  • Gearman - Fast multi-language queuing/job processing platform.
  • Kafka - Extremely high performance publish/subscribe message system.
  • NSQ - A realtime distributed messaging platform.
  • RabbitMQ - Robust, fully featured, cross distro queuing system.
  • ZeroMQ - Lightweight queuing system.

RDBMS

Relational DBMS.

  • Firebird - True universal database.
  • Galera - Galera Cluster for MySQL is an easy-to-use high-availability solution with high system up-time, no data loss, and scalability for future growth.
  • MariaDB - Community-developed fork of the MySQL.
  • MySQL - Most popular RDBMS server.
  • Percona Server - Enhanced, drop-in MySQL replacement.
  • PostgreSQL - Object-relational database management system (ORDBMS).
  • PostgreSQL-XL - Scalable PostgreSQL-based database cluster.
  • SQLite - Library that implements a self-contained, serverless, zero-configuration, transactional SQL DBS.

Security

Security tools.

  • Blackbox - Safely store secrets in Git/Mercurial. Provides tooling to automatically encrypt secrets like passwords.
  • Bro - Bro is a powerful framework for network analysis and security monitoring.
  • Denyhosts - Thwart SSH dictionary based attacks and brute force attacks.
  • Fail2Ban - Scans log files and takes action on IPs that show malicious behavior.
  • fwknop - Protects ports via Single Packet Authorization in your firewall.
  • Glastopf - A low-interaction web application honeypot to emulate vulnerabilities and gather attack data.
  • Kippo - A medium-interaction SSH honeypot, mostly used as a standalone SSH daemon with a configurable Filesystem sandbox.
  • Linux Malware Detect - A malware scanner for Linux designed around the threats faced in shared hosted environments.
  • OSSEC - OSSEC is a HIDS that performs log analysis, FIM, rootkit detection, and much more.
  • OSQuery - Query your servers status and info using a SQL like interface.
  • pfSense - Firewall and Router FreeBSD distribution.
  • Snort - Network intrusion prevention system (NIPS) and network intrusion detection system (NIDS).
  • SpamAssassin - A powerful and popular email spam filter employing a variety of detection technique.

Service Discovery

  • Consul - Consul is a tool for service discovery, monitoring and configuration.
  • Doozerd - Doozer is a highly-available, completely consistent store for small amounts of extremely important data.
  • etcd - distributed K/V-Store, authenticating via SSL PKI and a REST HTTP Api for shared configuration and service discovery.
  • ZooKeeper - ZooKeeper is a centralized service for maintaining configuration information, naming, providing distributed synchronization, and providing group services.

Software Containers

Operating systemlevel virtualization.

  • Docker - Platform for developers and sysadmins to build, ship, and run distributed applications.
  • LXC - Userspace interface for the Linux kernel containment features.
  • OpenVZ - Container-based virtualization for Linux.

SSH

SSH tools.

  • Advanced SSH config - Enhances ssh_config file capabilities, completely transparent.
  • autossh - Automatically respawn ssh session after network interruption.
  • Cluster SSH - Controls a number of xterm windows via a single graphical console.
  • DSH - Dancer's shell / distributed shell - Wrapper for executing multiple remote shell commands from one command line.
  • Mosh - The mobile shell.
  • parallel-ssh - Provides parallel versions of OpenSSH and related tools.
  • ssh-cert-authority - A democratic SSH certificate authority.
  • ssh-ca - Allows giving ssh access to servers without putting a users key on the server, as well as expiring access.
  • SSH Power Tool - Execute commands and upload files to many servers simultaneously without using pre-shared keys.
  • sshrc - sources ~/.sshrc on your local computer after logging in remotely.
  • stormssh - A command line tool to manage SSH connections.

Statistics

Analytics software.

  • Analog - Logfile Analyser.
  • AWStats - Generates web, streaming, ftp or mail server statistics graphically.
  • GoAccess - Real-time web log analyzer and interactive viewer that runs in a terminal.
  • Open Web Analytics - Add web analytics to websites using JS, PHP or REST APIs.
  • Piwik - Web analytics application.
  • Webalizer - Fast web server log file analysis.

Status Pages

  • Cachet - Status page system written in PHP.
  • Stashboard - Status page for cloud services and APIs.
  • System Status Dashboard (SSD) - Overview about an organization's infrastructure health status.
  • Staytus - Staytus is a complete solution for publishing the latest information about any issues with your web applications, networks or services.

Ticketing systems

Web-based ticketing system.

  • Bugzilla - General-purpose bugtracker and testing tool originally developed and used by the Mozilla project.
  • Cerb - Group-based e-mail management project.
  • Flyspray - Web-based bug tracking system written in PHP.
  • MantisBT - Web-based bug tracking system.
  • osTicket - Simple support ticket system.
  • OTRS - Trouble ticket system for assigning tickets to incoming queries and tracking further communications.
  • Request Tracker - Ticket-tracking system written in Perl.
  • TheBugGenie - Ticket system with extensive user rights system.

Troubleshooting

Troubleshooting Tools.

  • grml bootable Debian Live CD with powerful CLI tools.
  • mitmproxy - A Python tool used for intercepting, viewing and modifying network traffic. Invaluable in troubleshooting certain problems.
  • Sysdig - Capture system state and activity from a running Linux instance, then save, filter and analyze.
  • Wireshark - The world's foremost network protocol analyzer.

Version control

Software versioning and revision control.

  • Fossil - Distributed version control with built-in wiki and bug tracking.
  • Git - Distributed revision control and source code management (SCM) with an emphasis on speed.
  • GNU Bazaar - Distributed revision control system sponsored by Canonical.
  • Mercurial - Another distributed revision control.
  • Subversion - Client-server revision control system.

Virtualization

Virtualization software.

  • Archipel - XMPP based virtualization management platform.
  • ConVirt - Provides the core functionality for centrally managing your KVM or Xen virtualized environment.
  • Ganeti - Cluster virtual server management software tool built on top of KVM and Xen.
  • KVM - Linux kernel virtualization infrastructure.
  • OpenNebula - Flexible enterprise cloud made simple.
  • oVirt - Manages virtual machines, storage and virtual networks.
  • Packer - A tool for creating identical machine images for multiple platforms from a single source configuration.
  • Proxmox VE - Virtualization management solution.
  • QEMU - QEMU is a generic machine emulator and virtualizer.
  • Vagrant - Tool for building complete development environments.
  • VirtualBox - Virtualization product from Oracle Corporation.
  • Xen - Virtual machine monitor for 32/64 bit Intel / AMD (IA 64) and PowerPC 970 architectures.

VPN

VPN software.

  • OpenVPN - Uses a custom security protocol that utilizes SSL/TLS for key exchange.
  • Pritunl - OpenVPN based solution. Easy to set up.
  • SoftEther - Multi-protocol software VPN with advanced features
  • sshuttle - Poor man's VPN.
  • strongSwan - Complete IPsec implementation for Linux.
  • tinc - Distributed p2p VPN.

XMPP

XMPP servers.

XMPP Web Clients

  • Candy - Multi user XMPP client written in Javascript.
  • Kaiwa - Web based chat client in the style of common paid alternatives.
  • Lets-Chat - A self hosted chat suite written in Node.

Web

Web servers.

  • Apache - Most popular web server.
  • Cherokee - Lightweight, high-performance web server/reverse proxy.
  • Lighttpd - Web server more optimized for speed-critical environments.
  • Nginx - Reverse proxy, load balancer, HTTP cache, and web server.
  • uWSGI - The uWSGI project aims at developing a full stack for building hosting services.

Web Performance

  • HAProxy - Software based load Balancing, SSL offloading and performance optimization, compression, and general web routing.
  • Varnish - HTTP based web application accelerator focusing on optimizing caching and compression.

Wiki Software

  • DokuWiki - Simple to use and highly versatile wiki that doesn't require a database.
  • Gollum - A simple, Git-powered wiki with a sweet API and local frontend.
  • ikiwiki - A wiki compiler.
  • MDwiki - Wiki completely built in HTML5/Javascript and runs 100% on the client
  • Mediawiki - Used to power Wikipedia.
  • MoinMoin - An advanced, easy to use and extensible WikiEngine with a large community of users.
  • Ōlelo Wiki - A wiki that stores pages in a Git repository.
  • PmWiki - Wiki-based system for collaborative creation and maintenance of websites.
  • TiddlyWiki - Complete interactive wiki in JavaScript.

Resources

Various resources, such as books, websites and articles, for improving your skills and knowledge.

Blogs

Books

Sysadmin related books.

Communities / Forums

For the social people.

Newsletters

  • Servers for Hackers - Newsletter for programmers who find themselves needing to know their way around a server.
  • Web Operations Weekly - A weekly newsletter on Web operations, infrastructure, performance, and tooling, from the browser down to the metal.

Repositories

Software package repositories.

  • AlternativeTo - Find alternatives to software you know and discover new software.

Debian-based distributions

  • Dotdeb - Repository with LAMP updated packages for Debian.

RPM-based distributions

  • ElRepo - Community Repo for Enterprise Linux (RHEL, CentOS, etc).
  • EPEL - Repository for RHEL and compatibles (CentOS, Scientific Linux).
  • Remi - Repository with LAMP updated packages for RHEL/Centos/Fedora.
  • Software Collections - Community Release of Red Hat Software Collections. Provides updated packages of Ruby, Python, etc. for CentOS/Scientific Linux 6.x.

Websites

Useful sysadmin related websites.

  • Ops School - Comprehensive program that will help you learn to be an operations engineer.
  • Digital Ocean Tutorials - A surprisingly vast resource for getting the basics of certain applications, tools, or even systems administration topics.

Wikis

Useful Wikis for Sysadmins not to be confused with Wiki software.

  • ArchWiki Arch Linux Wiki which has really nice written articles valid for other distros.
  • Gentoo Wiki - Gentoo Linux Wiki with a lot in-detail description of Linux components.

License

cc license

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.