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Join me in editing and populating this Wiki post by sharing tools, scripts, cheat sheets, etc., that you frequently refer to or have saved to your bookmarks.
Config Provisioning & Management
- Ansible – open-source software provisioning, config management, and app-deployment tool.
- Chef Infra – infrastructure automation framework that turns infrastructure into code.
- Puppet – centralizes and automates system administration tasks.
- SaltStack – event-driven, infrastructure management and remote execution platform.
- Terraform – infrastructure as code to provision and manage cloud or on-prem resources.
- OpenTofu – open-source Terraform-compatible IAC.
- Pulumi – infrastructure as code in real programming languages.
- Packer – automated machine image building for many platforms.
- cloud-init – cross-distro cloud instance initialization.
- Foreman – lifecycle management for physical and virtual servers.
- CFEngine – policy-based automation at scale.
- Rudder – configuration management with built-in compliance.
- Nix – declarative package and system configuration management.
Backups
- Timeshift – system restore tool for Linux.
- HashBackup – encrypted, deduplicated, compressed backups.
- Déjà Dup – simple desktop backup tool.
- BorgBackup – deduplicating backups with compression and encryption.
- restic – modern backups to many storage types.
- Duplicati – encrypted, incremental backups to cloud services.
- rclone – command-line sync and backup to cloud storage and more.
- duplicity – encrypted, bandwidth-efficient backups using rsync algorithm.
- Kopia – fast, encrypted snapshots with CLI and GUI.
- borgmatic – simple automation wrapper for Borg.
- Proxmox Backup Server – deduplicated backups for VMs, containers, and hosts.
- Bacula – enterprise-ready network backup.
- Amanda – network backups for multiple hosts.
- UrBackup – client/server backups with web UI.
- rsnapshot – snapshot-style backups based on rsync.
- rdiff-backup – reverse incremental backups.
Benchmarking
- Bench-scripts – compilation of Linux server benchmark scripts.
- YABS – simple script to estimate server performance.
- Phoronix Test Suite – comprehensive cross-platform benchmarking.
- iperf3 – network throughput testing.
- fio – flexible I/O benchmarking tool.
- stress-ng – system stress testing toolkit.
- sysbench – modular CPU, memory, I/O, and DB benchmark.
- Even more see bench-scripts: A compilation of Linux server benchmarking scripts.
Data Removal
- Darik’s Boot and Nuke – DBAN – bootable data wiping tool.
- ShredOS – bootable Linux for secure disk erase (uses nwipe).
- nwipe – standalone secure disk eraser.
- shred – securely overwrite files to prevent recovery.
- wipe – secure file deletion utility.
Cloning & Imaging
- Rescuezilla – GUI disk imaging, compatible with Clonezilla images.
- Ventoy – multiboot USB for many ISOs/images.
- Clonezilla – disk imaging and cloning.
- partclone – back up and restore partitions.
dd– built-in Unix tool to copy and convert data at a raw level.- FOG Project – PXE-based network imaging and deployment.
- FSArchiver – filesystem-aware backup and restore.
- GNU ddrescue – data recovery from failing media.
- Redo Rescue – simple live backup, restore, and recovery.
Security
- rootkit hunter (rkhunter) – checks for rootkits and suspicious changes.
- fail2ban – bans hosts after repeated auth failures.
- ConfigServer Firewall (CSF) – firewall and login failure detection.
- ClamAV – open-source antivirus engine.
- Lynis – security auditing and system hardening.
- Tripwire – file integrity checker and IDS.
- AIDE – Advanced Intrusion Detection Environment (file integrity).
- Wazuh – host-based IDS with SIEM and XDR features.
- chkrootkit – local rootkit detection.
- CrowdSec – collaborative, behavior-based IPS.
- OpenSCAP – compliance scanning and policy enforcement.
- Falco – runtime security for containers and Kubernetes.
System Health
- atop – system and process monitor with logging.
- btop – modern terminal resource monitor.
- Cockpit – web-based server administration.
- Glances – curses-based cross-platform dashboard.
- Netdata – real-time performance monitoring and visualization.
- nmon – performance monitor for CPU, memory, network, disk.
- sysstat (sar) – performance collection tools (sar, iostat, mpstat).
- htop – interactive process viewer.
- iotop – per-process disk I/O monitor.
- iftop – per-interface bandwidth usage.
- bmon – bandwidth monitor and rate estimator.
- vnStat – network traffic monitor.
Monitoring
- Cacti – web-based network graphing.
- Checkmk – comprehensive monitoring with auto-discovery.
- Monit – process/service monitoring and autorestart.
- Munin – networked resource monitoring and graphing.
- Nagios Core – classic host and service monitoring.
- Zabbix – enterprise monitoring for networks and applications.
- Icinga – modern monitoring and alerting, Nagios-compatible.
- Observium – network monitoring with auto-discovery.
- Prometheus – metrics collection and alerting toolkit.
- Grafana – visualization and analytics dashboards.
- LibreNMS – auto-discovering network monitoring.
- NetXMS – scalable network and infrastructure monitoring.
- Uptime Kuma – self-hosted status and uptime monitoring.
- SmokePing – latency monitoring and graphing.
- Telegraf – metrics and log collector agent.
- More: Free Linux Server Monitoring and APM solutions for SysAdmins
- Even more: 100 Top Observability Tools (+ Server Monitoring and APM solutions)
Text Editors
- micro – modern and intuitive terminal-based text editor.
nano– simple, user-friendly command-line text editor installed by default on many distros.vim– powerful and highly configurable text editor with a large ecosystem of plugins.- Neovim – hyperextensible Vim-based editor with async and LSP support.
emacs– extensible, customizable text editor with a vast ecosystem.- Doom Emacs – an Emacs framework focused on speed and ergonomics.
- XNEdit – classic X11 editor with Unicode and antialiasing.
- Helix – modal editor with tree-sitter and LSP.
- Kakoune – selection-focused modal editor.
- Lapce – fast, Rust-based code editor.
- Even more, see 50 Linux Text Editors You Should Know About.
Useful Resources
- addr.tools – useful tools for the Internet.
- Awesome-sysadmin – curated open-source sysadmin resources.
- Linux Insides – deep dives into Linux kernel internals.
- Awesome bash alias – curated Bash aliases.
- Linux Filesystem – overview of common directories and their purpose.
- tldr pages – simplified, community-driven man pages.
- sshaudit.com – audit SSH server or client configuration.
- Arch Linux Wiki – high-signal community documentation.
- cheat.sh – instant cheat sheets via web or curl.
- explainshell – explain any shell command’s parts.
Containers & Virtualization
- Docker – container platform for building and running applications.
- containerd – industry-standard container runtime.
- Podman – daemonless, rootless-compatible container engine.
- Kubernetes – container orchestration for deployment and scaling.
- K3s – lightweight Kubernetes distribution.
- MicroK8s – single-command Kubernetes for workstations and edge.
- LXC – system containers for lightweight virtualization.
- LXD – system container and VM manager.
- QEMU – machine emulator and virtualization.
- KVM – Linux kernel virtualization infrastructure.
- libvirt – virtualization API and tooling.
- Vagrant – reproducible development environments.
- Proxmox VE – virtualization platform with clustering and web UI.
- Nomad – simple, flexible scheduler for containers and VMs.
- Harbor – open-source container registry with security and policies.
VPN
- OpenVPN – classic open-source VPN protocol and software.
- openvpn-install – one-command OpenVPN server installer.
- WireGuard – modern, fast VPN with strong cryptography.
- strongSwan – IPsec-based VPN (site-to-site and remote access).
- SoftEther VPN – multi-protocol, cross-platform VPN.
- Tinc – mesh VPN daemon with automatic peer connections.
- Algo VPN – on-demand WireGuard/IPsec VPN server deployer.
- Outline – self-hosted access server based on Shadowsocks.
- Tailscale – zero-config WireGuard-based mesh VPN.
- ZeroTier – virtual network overlay and SD-WAN.
- Headscale – self-hosted Tailscale-compatible control server.
- Netmaker – WireGuard-based virtual networking.
- Nebula – scalable, encrypted mesh overlay network.
Web Analytics
- GoAccess – real-time web log analyzer (terminal and HTML).
- Matomo – open-source, self-hosted web analytics.
- AWStats – log file analyzer for web stats.
- Plausible – lightweight, privacy-friendly analytics.
- Open Web Analytics – self-hosted analytics framework.
- GoatCounter – simple, privacy-focused analytics.
- Shynet – modern, cookie-free analytics.
- Umami – open-source, privacy-first analytics.
- Countly – product analytics, web and mobile.
- Ackee – self-hosted, privacy-aware analytics.
Feel free to jump in and edit this Wiki post. Simply edit to add listing(s), then add your @username to the ‘Editors’
I think with all of us “putting heads together," as it were, we will be able to discover even more great tools, solutions, and resources!
