Notes from the server room.
Engineering deep dives, infrastructure tutorials, and the occasional opinion from the team building a faster way to run servers.
Latest articles
197 articles
The Most Useful Cron Jobs for Web Servers
Roughly ten cron jobs cover the recurring ops work of a web server — database dumps, disk alerts, cert checks, and cleanup...
How to Schedule Scripts Without Cron (systemd Timers)
A systemd timer starts another unit on a schedule — with journald logging, catch-up runs, and dependencies cron lacks...
How to Automate Server Maintenance Tasks
Five maintenance tasks cause most avoidable server incidents: unpatched packages, full disks, expired certs, missing backups...
How to Send Yourself Alerts When a Cron Job Fails
A cron job that fails makes no sound. Cron does not retry or escalate — get an alert the moment a scheduled job breaks...
Cron Syntax Explained with Real Examples
Every crontab line is five time fields followed by a command. The full grammar — steps, ranges, lists — with real examples...
How to Automate Database Backups with Cron
A mysqldump pasted into a crontab fails in more ways than it succeeds. Build a real backup script with gzip and retention...
How to Debug Cron Jobs That Aren't Running
Nine out of ten broken cron jobs did exactly what cron was told — the problem is the environment, the path, or the file itself...
How to Run WordPress Cron Reliably with a Real Cron Job
WP-Cron only wakes when a visitor loads a page, so schedules get missed. Replace it with a real cron job in three steps...
How to Schedule Recurring Tasks the Right Way
A task that merely runs is not one you can trust. Locking, logging, staggering, and idempotent jobs make schedules production-grade...
How to Set Up Cron Jobs on a Linux Server (Beginner's Guide)
Cron has shipped with Unix since 1975 and is already on your server. Learn crontab -e, the five fields, and how to verify runs...
Email Hosting Basics Every Website Owner Should Know
Email hosting is a mailbox on a server plus DNS records pointing at it. What SMTP, IMAP, MX, SPF, and DKIM actually do, in plain English...
How to Send WordPress Emails Reliably (SMTP Setup)
wp_mail() hands your email to PHP mail() with no authentication, so order emails vanish. Authenticated SMTP fixes it — here's how...
How to Fix Email Authentication Failures
The Authentication-Results header names the exact failing check — then fix SPF fails, DKIM key mismatches, and DMARC alignment...
How to Set Up a Catch-All Email Address
A catch-all accepts mail sent to any address at your domain that has no mailbox — how to set one up and the trade-offs to expect...
How to Test Your Email Deliverability Score
Put a real number on your deliverability: mail-tester, Gmail's auth headers, dig blacklist checks, and what score is good enough...
How to Set Up Transactional Email for Your Web App
A password reset that arrives in four seconds is invisible; in four minutes it's a support ticket. Get app email delivered right...
Self-Hosted Email vs Google Workspace: Which Is Right for You?
Flat server cost vs per-user fees, control vs zero-ops, and the deliverability trade-off — an honest guide to choosing your email home...
How to Configure SPF, DKIM, and DMARC Records
SPF, DKIM, and DMARC answer three different questions receivers ask about every message. Configure all three and roll out DMARC safely...
Why Your Emails Go to Spam (and How to Fix It)
Spam placement is rarely random: failed SPF, DKIM, or DMARC, missing reverse DNS, and a cold IP reputation explain almost every case...
How to Set Up Email on Your Own Server
A self-hosted mail stack is Postfix plus Dovecot — but nothing works until DNS, PTR, and port 25 are right. The full checklist inside...
Common DNS Mistakes That Take Your Site Offline
Most DNS outages are self-inflicted: high TTLs, orphaned records after migrations, duplicate SPF, expired delegations...
How to Use Cloudflare to Speed Up and Protect Your Site
Cloudflare's free plan is a real CDN and a real shield — edge caching, HTTP/3, DDoS mitigation, and verifying cache HITs with curl...
How to Set Up Cloudflare SSL with Your Origin Server
Cloudflare's four SSL modes encrypt very different things. Why Full (strict) is the only production-grade choice...
Cloudflare Proxy vs DNS-Only: When to Use Each
The orange cloud hides your IP and caches your site; grey cloud is pure DNS. Mail, SSH, and non-HTTP ports need DNS-only...
Spend less time managing servers.
Everything you just read about — deployments, SSL, backups, cron, and monitoring — is one click away in CloudStick. Connect your first server free.
Get Started Free