Mini Project 01 — System Health Dashboard

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Overview

Build a terminal-based system health dashboard that shows key metrics at a glance. Run it manually or schedule it to generate periodic reports.

Skills: Shell Scripting, System Monitoring, Process Management, Cron

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What You'll Build

A script that outputs a formatted report like this:

╔══════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║     SYSTEM HEALTH DASHBOARD — 2024-06-20     ║
╚══════════════════════════════════════════════╝

HOST: myserver | UPTIME: 3 days, 4:12

[CPU]
  Load (1/5/15): 0.42 / 0.38 / 0.31
  Cores: 4 | Usage: ~10%

[MEMORY]
  Total: 7.7G | Used: 2.1G | Free: 5.2G | Used: 27%

[DISK]
  /         → 45% used (22G/50G)
  /home     → 12% used (6G/50G)

[NETWORK]
  Interface: eth0 | IP: 192.168.1.10

[SERVICES]
  [OK]   ssh
  [OK]   cron
  [DOWN] nginx

[RECENT ERRORS]
  (none in the last hour)

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Files

File	Purpose
dashboard.sh	Main dashboard script
config.sh	Configuration (thresholds, services to check)

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Setup

# Clone or navigate to the project
cd ~/linux-administration/03-mini-projects/01-system-health-dashboard/

# Make scripts executable
chmod +x dashboard.sh

# Run it
./dashboard.sh

# Run with color disabled (for log files)
./dashboard.sh --no-color

# Schedule it every hour via cron
crontab -e
# Add: 0 * * * * /path/to/dashboard.sh --no-color >> /var/log/health-dashboard.log

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Learning Goals

After completing this project you will be able to: - Extract CPU, memory, and disk metrics programmatically - Check service status from a script - Format terminal output with colors and borders - Schedule a script with cron

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Projects Index | Next → 02 — Automated Backup