Originally published January 7, 2018 @ 11:00 pm
Just a quick note on how to (sort of) figure out when a server first came online. This can be useful to various folks in your bean-counting department working on maintenance contract renewals and whatnot. The idea is simple: figure out when the root filesystem was created and, in all likelihood, the server was built at around the same time. Not applicable to cloned virtual machines.
And here’s command:
date -d "$(/sbin/tune2fs -l `df -lP / | grep ^\/ | awk '{print $1}'` | grep created | head -1 | sed 's/:\s\+/@/g' | awk -F'@' '{print $NF}')" +'%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'
Experienced Unix/Linux System Administrator with 20-year background in Systems Analysis, Problem Resolution and Engineering Application Support in a large distributed Unix and Windows server environment. Strong problem determination skills. Good knowledge of networking, remote diagnostic techniques, firewalls and network security. Extensive experience with engineering application and database servers, high-availability systems, high-performance computing clusters, and process automation.
