Technical guide
List Git branches by most recent commit date
Sort branches by tip commit date, format local and remote-tracking references, and build a useful stale-branch review list.
Explainer
Share configuration between Nginx locations
Use inheritance, include files, or a shared regex location while preserving correct root, alias, and header behavior.
Explainer
Send Python logs to syslog
Configure SysLogHandler for a local Unix socket or a remote receiver, including transport, facility, and macOS limitations.
Technical guide
Combine two commits during an interactive Git rebase
Use squash or fixup to combine adjacent commits, adjust a pending rebase plan, and recover safely when the relevant commits have already been replayed.
Technical guide
Read the contents of a message in the Postfix queue
Find a queue ID with mailq, inspect its envelope, headers, or body with postcat, and distinguish message content from delivery diagnostics.
Explainer
Speed up a MySQL restore from a dump file
Reduce MySQL restore overhead with batched inserts, controlled transactions, suitable InnoDB settings, and a backup format that supports parallel loading.
Technical guide
Check whether a response uses gzip compression
Inspect Content-Encoding on an actual GET response, then compare transfer sizes for a stable resource.
Technical guide
View an older version of a file in Git
Use git show to read or export a historical file, follow renames, compare versions, and restore the right snapshot without switching branches.
Explainer
Forward query parameters through Nginx proxy_pass
Understand when proxy_pass preserves query strings, how rewrite appends arguments, and how to test encoded or repeated parameters.
Explainer
Check the size of a Postfix mail queue
Use postqueue to inspect queued messages, count entries, and trace delivery delays before retrying or deleting mail.
Technical guide
Copy one file from another Git branch
Bring a file or directory into your current branch, choose whether to stage it, and avoid confusing a snapshot replacement with a merge.
Technical guide
Delete a file from a Git repository
Remove a tracked file with git rm, keep a local copy with --cached, undo a staged deletion, and understand what remains in repository history.