Standards, Automation, and Reference Architectures

This section is a living technical handbook. It contains the same internal standards we use to run real production systems.

Everything here is designed to be automation-friendly, production-tested, vendor-neutral, and documentation-driven.

Topics covered

• Repository structure and naming conventions
• Inventory design (single site / multi-site)
• Role design (idempotent, reusable, composable)
• Playbook layering (bootstrap → services → hardening)
• Variable hierarchy and secrets management
• Safe rollout strategies (serial, canary, check mode)

Example use cases

• Server bootstrap (users, SSH, sudo, updates)
• Service deployment (GLPI, Zabbix, BookStack, Nextcloud)
• Configuration drift prevention
• Disaster recovery automation

Topics covered

• Host and template design
• Proxy-based monitoring architectures
• Active vs passive checks
• Network, service, and application monitoring
• Log-based monitoring (Loki, Vector)
• Alert routing and escalation logic
• Maintenance and change windows

Outcome

• Predictable alerts
• No alert noise
• Clear ownership
• Actionable notifications

Standards defined

• BookStack structure (Book → Chapter → Page)
• Command documentation format
• Runbook templates
• Incident documentation
• Architecture decision records (ADR)
• Change and rollback procedures

Goal

Any sysadmin can take over a system without tribal knowledge.

Included architectures

• Single-node production servers
• HA web stacks
• Monitoring and logging stacks
• Inventory and discovery networks
• Backup and disaster recovery layouts
• Secure remote access architectures

Each architecture includes

• Network diagrams
• VM layout
• Storage design
• Security boundaries
• Automation entry points

Covers

• SSH hardening
• Firewall policy
• Update strategy
• Service isolation
• Secrets handling
• Audit logging

Designed to be enforced automatically.

• Run Linux in production
• Want reproducible infrastructure
• Care about documentation quality
• Automate instead of clicking
• Need clarity, not magic

• Use it as reference
• Use it to write playbooks
• Use it to onboard engineers
• Use it to standardize operations

All content is structured so it can be directly translated into Ansible roles and playbooks.

This section is actively evolving. Content is added as architectures and standards are validated in production.

If you want access to implementation playbooks or reviewed architectures, use the request form on the website.