sysop@hub:~/tools/it-documentation$

it-documentation

The documentation a consultant would charge two days for: the emergency page, every network, line, device and server, the admin accounts, the backups and who to call. Fill in the sections, the handbook builds itself below, the checks point at the gaps, and it prints clean for the red folder.

Your handbook lives only in this tab and in the file you save. The page stores nothing in the browser and sends nothing anywhere. Write down where passwords are kept, never the passwords: the checks warn when something looks like one.

the handbook

how to keep it alive

• Give it one owner and a date. A handbook nobody owns is wrong within a year.
• Update it with the change, not afterwards: new switch, new line, new admin, same day.
• Print the emergency page and keep it where someone finds it when the network is down, the file share is gone and the laptop is encrypted.
• Once a year, give it to someone who does not know the environment and let them find the backup, the firewall and the provider's number with nothing else.
• Keep the saved file in two places, one of them not on the network it describes.

For the pieces around it: the asset inventory for every PC and phone, the licence tracker for renewals, the network diagram builder for the picture, the incident plan builder for the full response plan, and the checklists for handovers and audits.