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# Postmortem: Server Downtime on August 24th
## Incident Overview
**Start Time:** August 24th, 00:08 UTC
**End Time:** August 24th, 03:10 UTC
The server experienced a significant outage beginning at 00:08 UTC, which lasted until 03:10 UTC, totaling approximately 3 hours and 2 minutes of downtime.
## Impact
- Inaccessible services hosted on the affected server
- Disruption of user access and potential data transfer issues
- System stability was compromised due to proxy management failure
## Cause
The primary cause of the outage was identified as a failure in the **Nginx Proxy Manager**. Specifically, it broke due to issues with **Let's Encrypt**-based certificates. The broken certificates caused the proxy manager to malfunction, leading to the entire system becoming inaccessible.
*Note:* The exact root cause remains uncertain, but the failure of certificate renewal or validation appears to be a critical factor.
## Timeline
| Time (UTC) | Event |
|------------|---------|
| 00:08 | Proxy manager failure detected; system becomes inaccessible |
| ~00:08 - 02:40 | Attempted to deploy alternative proxy solutions (Traefik, Caddy, Nginx Proxy Manager Plus) |
| 02:40 | Abandoned alternative deployment attempts after ~2.5 hours |
| 02:40 - 03:10 | Installed a fresh copy of Nginx Proxy Manager on a new LXC container and reconfigured from scratch |
| 03:10 | Services restored; system fully operational |
## Resolution & Actions Taken
1. **Failed Attempts with Alternative Proxy Solutions**
Spent approximately 2.5 hours trying to deploy and configure Traefik, Caddy, and Nginx Proxy Manager Plus. These efforts were unsuccessful, leading to delays in restoring service.
2. **Fresh Install of Nginx Proxy Manager**
Decided to start from scratch by deploying a new instance of Nginx Proxy Manager on a new LXC container. This involved:
- Setting up a new container environment
- Installing Nginx Proxy Manager anew
- Reconfiguring proxy and SSL certificates manually
This approach successfully restored service and stabilized the environment.
## Lessons Learned
- **Certificate Management:** Automated certificate renewal processes can cause system failures if not properly monitored or if certificate validation fails unexpectedly.
- **Backup & Recovery:** Maintaining backups of configuration and certificates could reduce downtime during such incidents.
- **Testing Alternative Solutions:** Prolonged attempts to deploy alternative proxy solutions highlight the importance of testing and validation in staging environments before production deployment.
- **Monitoring & Alerts:** Enhanced monitoring and alerting for certificate expiry or proxy failures could enable quicker response times.
## Next Steps
- Investigate the root cause of the Let's Encrypt certificate failure to prevent recurrence.
- Implement regular backups of configurations and certificates.
- Improve monitoring for SSL certificate health and proxy server status.
- Document and test fallback procedures for proxy management failures.
- Review and optimize deployment procedures for proxy solutions.
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**Prepared by:** Kneesox - Shiro
**Date:** 08/24/25