Monthly operations checklist
This checklist is for the system administrators and support staff who operate Exponential sites. Run it once a month per site (or per server for the server items), record the result, and open a ticket for each item that fails.
Site/server: <name> Month: <yyyy-mm> Checked by: <name>Updates
- To do: New Exponential releases since last month are known; security fixes among them are applied or scheduled (Working with the project and 7x, Upgrading customer sites).
- To do: Extension updates checked where you manage them (Automated updates with ezupdate).
- To do: Operating system and PHP security updates applied.
- To do: PHP version still supported by its maintainers and by Exponential (8.0 to 8.5).
Backups
- To do: Every backup of the month completed; failures followed up.
- To do: One site's backup, chosen in rotation, restored on another machine this month (Restore and restore tests).
- To do: Old backups removed according to the retention policy (Backup schedules and retention).
Disk and logs
- To do: Disk use of
var/storage,var/cache,var/logand the database within the plan (Storage layout). - To do: Logs rotate; archives pruned (
./console exp:logs --archives,./console exp:logs --prune --dry-run) (Log viewer and rotation). - To do: No growing error pattern in
error.log(./console exp:logs --search=... --file=var/log/error.log --rotations).
Security
- To do:
security.logreviewed: probes are normal on the internet; look for bursts and for attacks that got a 200 (Security log). - To do: No unknown administrator accounts; leavers removed.
- To do: The audit trail shows no unexpected changes to roles and policies (Audit trail).
- To do: Certificates valid for more than the renewal margin (with Velocity:
php bin/php/console exp:velocity ssl show --allow-root-user) (TLS and HTTPS).
Jobs and caches
- To do: Cron jobs ran on schedule; none failing repeatedly (Cronjob console).
- To do: Mail queue and bounces normal (Mail consent and bounces).
- To do: With Velocity:
php bin/php/console exp:velocity status --allow-root-userreports it running; the cache statistics look normal (exp:velocity cache stats).
Report to the customer
- To do: Availability of the month from your external check.
- To do: Incidents and what was done.
- To do: Updates applied and planned.
- To do: Restore test result, if this site was the sample.
- To do: Disk and database growth.
Related pages
- Monitoring overview
- Security review checklist
- SLA options
- Free documentation: this page is free to copy, translate and improve under the GNU FDL 1.3.
Become an Exponential Partner
Partners share their information, provide funding, contribute back and develop the products with us, and that is how Exponential grows. A partner website and dashboard are planned for mid-2027: please become a partner today to speed up our growth rate and land new features faster.