Astra Server Monitor

01Project overview

02Engineering challenge

Terminal output is precise but slow to interpret under pressure. At the same time, any tool with server access must be designed so it cannot accidentally change the system it observes.

• A

  Collect diagnostic information without elevated, write-capable operations.

• B

  Present services, processes and resources in a form that is quick to scan.

• C

  Explore disk usage interactively while keeping the file system read-only.

• D

  Verify the actual state of services after each deployment.

03Solution architecture

Hover or tap each stage.

04Main components

• 01

  System overview

  Key resource metrics and host information at a glance.

• 02

  Service status

  State of the services that run the platform.

• 03

  Process view

  Observation of running processes and their resource usage.

• 04

  Disk Explorer

  Interactive, read-only breakdown of disk usage by directory.

• 05

  Access control

  A controlled set of diagnostic functions instead of open shell access.

• 06

  Deployment checks

  Used to confirm real behaviour after changes go live.

05Technology stack

07Engineering decisions

1. 01

   Read-only by default

   Investigating a problem should never be able to create a new one.

2. 02

   Structured, not scraped on the client

   Command output is parsed on the server into typed data the UI can trust.

3. 03

   Visual where it helps

   Disk usage is a hierarchy — so it is shown as one, instead of a long list.

08Reliability & testing

• ✓Restricted set of diagnostic operations.
• ✓Timeouts on collectors so one slow command does not freeze the dashboard.
• ✓Used as part of post-deployment verification.

09Code example

import os
from pathlib import Path

def directory_sizes(root: Path, max_entries: int = 50) -> list[tuple[str, int]]:
    """Read-only scan: never follows symlinks, never writes."""
    sizes: list[tuple[str, int]] = []
    for entry in os.scandir(root):
        if entry.is_symlink():
            continue
        total = 0
        if entry.is_dir(follow_symlinks=False):
            for dirpath, _, files in os.walk(entry.path, followlinks=False):
                for name in files:
                    try:
                        total += os.lstat(os.path.join(dirpath, name)).st_size
                    except OSError:
                        pass  # file vanished or no permission — skip
        else:
            total = entry.stat(follow_symlinks=False).st_size
        sizes.append((entry.name, total))
    return sorted(sizes, key=lambda x: x[1], reverse=True)[:max_entries]

Production source is private. Examples here show the engineering approach, not proprietary logic. More in the Engineering Lab.

10Possible extensions

• →Historical metrics with simple trend charts.
• →Threshold alerts delivered to Telegram.
• →Multi-server view for several hosts.