A One-Weekend Observability Stack That Stays Small
Assemble a weekend metrics, logs, and alerts stack on one VPS with hard RAM and disk caps so the observers never crowd out the application you run.
Observability9 min read
NetBay journal
Observability
10 practical Observability articles from Netbay Engineering — written for operators running Linux and Windows VPS in India.
10 articles in this topic
AllLinuxLinux AdministrationWindowsLinux SecurityLinux NetworkingContainersContainers & OrchestrationKubernetesCI/CDGitHubSelf-HostingBackups & DataDatabasesApp DeploymentDNS & TLSObservabilityEmailAI AgentsAI InfrastructureAPI & AutomationProxiesCloud ArchitectureHardware & PerformanceDevOps Practices
Uptime Checks From Outside the VPS Machine
On-box probes cannot see a dead host or a blocked NIC. Add a cheap external HTTP check so someone else notices when your Lucknow VPS stops answering.
Observability8 min read
Loki and Promtail on One VPS: When It Is Enough
Run Loki with a filesystem store and Promtail against journald on one VPS, with retention that fits the disk, and know the day this setup stops being enough.
Observability9 min read
logrotate: Keep VPS Logs From Filling the Disk
Configure logrotate so leftover text logs cannot fill a VPS root disk, with size caps, copytruncate versus create, and a dry-run habit before you need it.
Observability8 min read
journald as the Source of Truth, Not Log Files
Treat the systemd journal as the canonical log store on a VPS: persistent disk, field queries, vacuum limits, and one pipeline into Promtail or nothing.
Observability8 min read
Blackbox Exporter HTTP and TLS Probes on a VPS
Probe your own HTTP endpoints and TLS certificates from blackbox_exporter so Prometheus notices a dead site or an expiring cert before users do.
Observability8 min read
Alertmanager: Page Yourself Without Alert Fatigue
Wire Prometheus to Alertmanager with grouping, inhibit rules, and a for duration so a single VPS pages you for real faults, not for every blip.
Observability9 min read
Grafana Dashboards That Answer CPU, Disk, and Memory
Build a small Grafana dashboard whose panels answer CPU steal, disk await, and memory pressure with PromQL you can defend during an incident.
Observability9 min read
Run node_exporter and Prometheus on One VPS Node
Install node_exporter and Prometheus as systemd services on a single VPS, scrape localhost only, and keep the time series store small and restart-safe.
Observability9 min read
What to Measure on a VPS Before You Install Grafana
Capture CPU, memory, disk, and network baselines from the Linux CLI so you know what is normal on your VPS before Grafana is even installed.
Observability8 min read