DevOps on Marc JESTIN's Blog

Preventing sleep and suspension on a Debian server

Sat, 09 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Hello,

A server must be available 24 hours a day and obviously should not go to sleep, especially if we don’t have the tools to “wake it up.”

By default, or following the installation of certain packages, a Debian distribution may retain power-saving settings. The result: our machine “falls asleep” after a period of inactivity, and we can no longer access it remotely. ¹

This is particularly true for systems installed in a Desktop version (i.e., with a desktop manager like GNOME or others).

Using ACLs for Advanced File and Directory Permissions in Debian

Sat, 09 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Hello,

We often find ourselves working in directories where multiple users “clash” with one another.

A common example is when we need to clear caches generated by web server components. We then run into ownership and permission issues.

Usually, we rely on “bad good solutions”, such as:

Adding our user to a group it doesn’t truly belong to.
Creating custom sudo rules (which often end up being too broad, creating a significant security loophole).

Managing ACLs in Debian allows us to handle this very simply.