Untouchable Server

Every IT team has that one server. The one sitting in the corner of the rack with a dusty case, a yellowed label that says “DO NOT TOUCH”, and an aura of mystery.

This one ran on RHEL 3. When it was first installed, I was around 10 or 12 years old. It had lived through hardware migrations, OS updates, and entire generations of sysadmins: or rather, survived them.

Nobody really knew who had set it up. Nobody wanted to be the one to reboot it. At some point, it was even virtualized, like a digital relic carefully preserved in amber.

Its uptime was legendary. Every time someone mentioned replacing it, there was always a quiet “let’s not risk it.” You could almost feel the fear of breaking the ancient spell that kept it running.

It’s the kind of server you respect more than you understand. Because sometimes, in IT, stability doesn’t come from modernization. It comes from superstition. 😅