Words in the notebook
A short glossary for the work you are doing.
Fifteen terms that help distinguish a service, its data, its access and its way back.
- Service inventory
A maintained record of what a service depends on, where its data lives and who can operate or recover each part.
In your notebook: A shared wiki inventory includes the application, database, attachments, DNS, notification provider and backup maintainer.
Use this in a practical guide ↗- Persistent data
Information that must remain available when a process or application container is replaced. Its storage location and recovery method need to be recorded.
In your notebook: Wiki attachments belong in the recovery plan even when the application container can be recreated from a definition.
Use this in a practical guide ↗- Dependency
Another component or external service required for a particular function to work. Some dependencies affect the whole application; others affect only one feature.
In your notebook: An email provider may be a dependency for account recovery even while ordinary wiki browsing still works.
Use this in a practical guide ↗- Application administrator
A person allowed to manage an application's settings or users. This role does not automatically require administrative access to the underlying VPS.
In your notebook: The collective's membership coordinator can approve wiki accounts without receiving host administration access.
Use this in a practical guide ↗- Least privilege
Granting only the access needed for a person's or process's current work, with a way to review and remove it when that work changes.
In your notebook: A document reader receives access to the shared collection, rather than a host login or every private folder.
Use this in a practical guide ↗- SSH public key
The shareable part of an SSH key pair used in key-based authentication. The corresponding private key stays with its authorized holder and must not be pasted into the configurator.
In your notebook: A maintainer supplies an OpenSSH public key for host access and records whose key it is for later removal.
Use this in a practical guide ↗- Working space
Disk capacity kept available for temporary activity such as updates, imports and exports, in addition to the files the application normally retains.
In your notebook: The archive budget leaves space for an export package rather than filling the SSD entirely with original documents.
Use this in a practical guide ↗- Retention
The rule that decides how long old versions, deleted items or backup records remain available before removal. Different data sets can need different rules.
In your notebook: Keeping every document version forever changes the storage budget even when the visible folder barely grows.
Use this in a practical guide ↗- Independent copy
A recoverable copy held outside the live service's storage, with its own access and recovery arrangements. Independence should be considered for failures and credentials as well as location.
In your notebook: An archive backup on separate storage remains useful when the original VPS disk is unavailable, provided its recovery access is also available.
Use this in a practical guide ↗- Snapshot
A tool-defined view of data at a particular point. What it includes, how consistent it is and how it can be restored depend on the tool and capture procedure.
In your notebook: A chosen backup snapshot can contain the archive files while still requiring separate application configuration and database recovery.
Use this in a practical guide ↗- Restore drill
A controlled rehearsal that recovers data or an application to a separate test destination and checks whether the intended work can actually be completed.
In your notebook: A backup maintainer opens a restored wiki page and attachment, checks permissions and saves a test edit without touching the live wiki.
Use this in a practical guide ↗- Integrity check
A check for corruption or inconsistency within a defined scope. Its result must be read with that scope; structural checks and reading all saved data are different operations.
In your notebook: A repository check does not replace opening recovered archive documents and verifying that the application can use them.
Use this in a practical guide ↗- Background job
Work performed outside an immediate user request, often on a schedule. It needs a clear trigger, failure handling and someone responsible for checking the result.
In your notebook: An archive may create document previews overnight; a failed run needs attention even if the file browser still loads.
Use this in a practical guide ↗- Idempotency
Designing an operation so repeating the same logical request does not create an additional unintended effect. A retry should be recognized as the same work.
In your notebook: A notification job records which message was delivered so retrying that job does not send another copy to every member.
Use this in a practical guide ↗- Portable export
A documented package of data in usable formats, with enough context to interpret or import it elsewhere. A download is only portable once its contents and omissions are understood.
In your notebook: A wiki handover includes page files, attachments and notes explaining which history or permission details need separate treatment.
Use this in a practical guide ↗