A curated list of amazingly awesome open source sysadmin resources.

awesome-list awesome list sysadmin

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README.md

Awesome Sysadmin

A curated list of amazingly awesome open source sysadmin resources inspired by Awesome PHP

Awesome Sysadmin
Resources
- Blogs
- Books
- Editors
- Repositories
- Websites
Contributing

Backups

Backup software.

Amanda - Client-server model backup tool.
Bacula - Another Client-server model backup tool.
Backupninja - Lightweight, extensible meta-backup system.
Backuppc - Client-server model backup tool with file pooling scheme.
Burp - Network backup and restore program.
Duplicity - Encrypted bandwidth-efficient backup using the rsync algorithm.
Rsnapshot - Filesystem Snapshotting Utility.
SafeKeep - Centralized pull-based backup using rdiff-backup.
TarSnap - Secure backup service with an open-source client.
UrBackup - Another client-server backup system.
DREBS - AWS EBS backup script that supports strategies.

Cloning

Cloning software.

Clonezilla - Partition and disk imaging/cloning program.
Fog - Another computer cloning solution.
Redo Backup - Easy Backup, Recovery and Restore.

Cloud Computing

CloudStack - Cloud computing software for creating, managing, and deploying infrastructure cloud services.
Eucalyptus - Open source private cloud software with AWS compatibility.
OpenNebula - An user-driven cloud management platform for sysadmins and devops.
OpenStack - Open source software for building private and public clouds.
The Foreman - Foreman is a complete lifecycle management tool for physical and virtual servers. FOSS.
Cobbler - Cobbler is a Linux installation server that allows for rapid setup of network installation environments.
Mesos - Develop and run resource-efficient distributed systems.

Cloud Orchestration

Cloudify - Open source TOSCA-based cloud orchestration software platform written in Python and YAML.
Rundeck - Simple orchestration tool.
Salt - It's 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.
Seafile - Another Open Source 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 - Open Source system for private, encrypted and authenticated distrobution of data.

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.
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 - Open Source IT Documentation and CMDB.
iTop - A complete open source, ITIL, web based service management tool.
Ralph - Asset management, DCIM and CMDB system for large Data Centers as well as smaller LAN networks.

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.
Fabric - Python library and cli tool for streamlining the use of SSH for application deployment or systems administration tasks.
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.
GitLab CI - Based off of ruby. They also provide GitLab, which manages git repositories.
Go - Open source agile build and release management software.
Jenkins - An extendable open source continuous integration server.
Vlad the Deployer - Deployment automation.

Distributed Filesystems

Network distributed filesystems.

Ceph - Distributed object store and file system.
DRBD - Disributed Replicated Block Device.
GlusterFS - Scale-out network-attached storage file system.
HDFS - Distributed, scalable, and portable file-system written in Java for the Hadoop framework.
Lustre - A type of parallel distributed file system, generally used for large-scale cluster computing.
MooseFS - Fault tolerant, 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.
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.

Hosting Control Panels

Web hosting control panels

Ajenti - Control panel for Linux and BSD.
Feathur - VPS Provisioning and Management Software.
ISPConfig - Hosting control panel for Linux.
VestaCP - Hosting panel for Linux but with Nginx.
Virtualmin - Control panel for Linux based on webmin.
ZPanel - Control panel for Linux, BSD, and Windows.

IMAP/POP3

IMAP/POP3 mail servers.

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.
Qpopper - One of the oldest and most popular server implementations of POP3.

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.
Ralph - Asset management, DCIM and CMDB system for large Data Centers as well as smaller LAN networks.
Snipe IT - Asset & license management software.

LDAP

LDAP servers.

389 Directory Server - Developed by Red Hat.
Apache Directory Server - Apache Software Foundation project written in Java.
Fusion Directory - Improve the Management of the services and the company directory based on OpenLDAP.
OpenDJ - Fork of OpenDS.
OpenDS - Another directory server written in Java.
OpenLDAP - Developed by the OpenLDAP Project.

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
Graylog2 - Pluggable Log and Event Analysis Server with Alerting options.
Kibana - Visualize logs and time-stamped data.
Logstash - Tool for managing events and logs.
[Heka] (https://github.com/mozilla-services/heka) - Data collection and processing made easy

Monitoring

Monitoring software.

Cacti - Web-based network monitoring and graphing tool.
Cabot - Monitoring and alerts, similar to PagerDuty.
check_mk - Collection of extensions for Nagios.
Icinga - Fork of Nagios.
LibreNMS - fork of Observium.
Monit - Small Open Source 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.
Observium - SNMP monitoring for servers and networking devices. Runs on linux.
OMD - The Open Monitoring Distribution.
Opsview - Based on Nagios 4, Opsview Core is ideal for small IT and test environments.
Riemann - Flexible and fast events processor allowing complex events/metrics analysis.
Sensu - Open source monitoring framework.
Shinken - Another monitoring framework.
Thruk - Multibackend monitoring webinterface 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.
Grafana - A Graphite & InfluxDB Dashboard and Graph Editor.
Ganglia - High performance, scalable RRD based monitoring for grids and/or clusters of servers. Compatible with Graphite using a single collection process.
Graphite - Open source scaleable graphing server.
InfluxDB - Open source distributed time series database with no external dependencies.
OpenTSDB - Store and server massive amounts of time series data without losing granularity.
RRDtool - Open source industry standard, high performance data logging and graphing system for time series data.
Statsd - Application statistic listener.

Network Configuration Management

Network configuration management tools.

RANCID - Monitors network device's configurarion and maintain history of changes.
rConfig - Another network device configuration management tool.

Newsletters

Newsletter software.

DadaMail - Mailing List Manager, written in Perl.
phpList - Newsletter manager written in PHP.

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.
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 - Open source distributed document store database, focuses on JSON.
Graph
- FlockDB - Twitter's distributed, fault-tolerant graph database.
- Neo4j - Open source 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).

Queuing

BeanstalkD - A simple, fast work queue.
RabbitMQ - Robust, fully featured, cross distro queuing system.
ZeroMQ - Lightweight queuing system.

RDBMS

Relational DBMS.

Firebird - True universal open source 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 Open Source PostgreSQL-based database cluster.
SQLite - Library that implements a self-contained, serverless, zero-configuration, transactional SQL DBS.

SMTP

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 - Open Source 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).

Software Containers

Operating system–level virtualization.

Docker - Open platform for developers and sysadmins to build, ship, and run distributed applications.
OpenVZ - Container-based virtualization for Linux.

SSH

SSH tools.

autossh - Automatically respawn ssh session after network interruption.
Cluster SSH - Controls a number of xterm windows via a single graphical console.
Mosh - The mobile shell.
parallel-ssh - Provides parallel versions of OpenSSH and related tools.
SSH Power Tool - Execute commands and upload files to many servers simultaneously without using pre-shared keys.

Statistics

Analytics software.

Analog - The most popular logfile analyser in the world.
Piwik - Free and open source web analytics application.
Webalizer - Fast, free web server log file analysis program.

Ticketing systems

Web-based ticketing system.

Bugzilla - General-purpose bugtracker and testing tool originally developed and used by the Mozilla project.
Cerb - A group-based e-mail management project built with a commercial open source license.
Flyspray - Web-based bug tracking system written in PHP.
MantisBT - Another web-based bug tracking system.
osTicket - Open source support ticket system.
Otrs - A free and open-source trouble ticket system software package that a company, organization, or other entity can use to assign tickets to incoming queries and track further communications about them.
Request Tracker - Ticket-tracking system written in Perl.
TheBugGenie - Open source ticket system with extremely complete users rights granularity.

Troubleshooting

Troubleshooting Tools.

Sysdig - Capture system state and activity from a running Linux instance, then save, filter and analyze.

Project Management

Web-based project management and bug tracking systems.

ChiliProject - Fork of Redmine.
GitLab - Clone of GitHub written in ruby.
Gogs - Written in Go.
Redmine - Written in ruby on rails.
The Bug Genie - Written in PHP.
Trac - Written in python.

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.

Ganeti - Cluster virtual server management software tool built on top of KVM and Xen.
KVM - Linux kernel virtualization infrastructure.
oVirt - Manages virtual machines, storage and virtual networks.
Packer - A tool for creating identical machine images for multiple platforms from a single source configuration.
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.

ejabberd - XMPP instant messaging server written in Erlang/OTP.
Metronome IM - Fork of Prosody IM.
MongooseIM - Fork of ejabberd.
Openfire - Real time collaboration (RTC) server.
Prosody IM - XMPP server written in Lua.
Tigase - XMPP server implementation in Java.

Webmails

Webmail applications.

RainLoop - Simple, modern & fast web-based IMAP client.
Roundcube - Browser-based IMAP client with an application-like user interface.

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.

Wikis

Wiki software.

DokuWiki - Simple to use and highly versatile wiki that doesn't require a database.
ikiwiki - A wiki compiler.
Mediawiki - Used to power Wikipedia.
MoinMoin - An advanced, easy to use and extensible WikiEngine with a large community of users.
TiddlyWiki - Complete interactive wiki in JavaScript.

Resources

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

Blogs

Code as Craft - Etsy's Ops blog, lots of technical posts.
DevOpsGuys - Devops consultants who blog about operations.
Rackspace Developers - Slightly biased blog with lots of Devops Topics.

Books

Sysadmin related books.

The Linux Command Line - A book about the Linux command line by William Shotts.
The Phoenix Project: A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win - How DevOps techniques can fix the problems that happen in IT organizations.
The Practice of System and Network Administration - The first and second editions describes the best practices of system and network administration, independent of specific platforms or technologies.
The Visible Ops Handbook: Implementing ITIL in 4 Practical and Auditable Steps - Is a methodology designed to jumpstart implementation of controls and process improvement.
UNIX and Linux System Administration Handbook - Approaches system administration from a practical perspective.

Editors

Open source code editors.

Atom - A hackable text editor from Github.
Brackets - Open source 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.
jotgit - Git-backed real-time collaborative code editing.
Lime - Aims to provide an open source solution to Sublime Text
Vim - A highly configurable text editor built to enable efficient editing.

Repositories

Software package repositories.

Dotdeb - Repository with LAMP updated packages for Debian.
Remi - Repository with LAMP updated packages for RHEL/Centos/Fedora.

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. (Note: Digital Ocean pays authors for this content)

Contributing

Please see CONTRIBUTING for details.