Panelica Repair Tool: One-Click Server Diagnostics and Fixes

When Something's Wrong, You Shouldn't Need SSH

Panelica's Repair Tool scans a server's core services, configuration files, disk usage, and file ownership, reports each check as OK, Warning, or Critical, and fixes the ones that need fixing with one click. Every fix can be previewed before it runs, config changes are backed up and validated with automatic rollback, and destructive actions require an extra confirmation — so it is safe to hand to a ROOT account without babysitting every click.

A crashed service. A broken nginx config after a manual edit. A disk quietly filling up with old logs. A home directory with the wrong file ownership after someone ran a command as the wrong user. These are the everyday problems that eat up an admin's time — usually solved by SSHing in, running a handful of commands, and hoping nothing else breaks along the way.

Panelica's Repair Tool turns that troubleshooting session into a dashboard: it scans the server, tells you what is wrong, and fixes it with one click.

What It Does

Health Dashboard

The Repair Tool runs a set of checks against the server and reports each one as OK, Warning, or Critical — covering core services (the panel backend, web servers, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis, BIND, ProFTPD, fail2ban, and Rescue Mode itself), the nginx and Apache configuration that actually loads, disk usage on the root filesystem and the Panelica install path, and the sockets those data stores depend on.

Preview Before You Apply

Every fix can be previewed first, so you see exactly what it is going to do before anything changes. Fixes marked as destructive require an extra confirmation step.

What It Can Fix

• Service restart — restarts a stopped or misbehaving service, with an idempotent check so it will not restart something that is already healthy.
• Config regenerate — rebuilds a domain's nginx configuration, backing up the previous config and validating the new one before applying it. If the new config does not pass validation, it rolls back automatically instead of taking the site down. When more than one domain is affected, each one is regenerated and validated independently, so a single bad domain cannot take the others down with it — and the panel's own install-time configuration is never touched by this fix.
• Disk cleanup — clears temporary files, cache, trash, and rotated log files. It never touches databases, backups, or quarantined files.
• File ownership repair — fixes a home directory or domain's file ownership without breaking the directories the web server needs to write to, such as logs and session storage.

Per-User Permission Table

Alongside the general checks, the Repair Tool lists every user account with its home directory ownership status, and gives you a one-click fix for that specific user — without touching every other account on the server.

Always-On Maintenance

A "Free up disk space" action is always available in the Maintenance section, independent of whether the health scan currently flags disk space as a problem. The same section also includes a "Fix common problems" action that re-runs every one of Panelica's startup self-heal routines on demand — the same idea behind the fixcommonproblems-style utilities found in other panels, but scoped to Panelica's own architecture. It is non-destructive, so it needs no confirmation.

How to Use It

1. Log in to your Panelica panel with a ROOT account.
2. Open Tools and select Repair.
3. Review the health dashboard — see how many checks are OK, how many need attention, and how many are critical.
4. Click into a warning or critical item to preview exactly what the suggested fix will do.
5. Apply the fix. Destructive actions ask for confirmation first.
6. The affected check re-scans automatically so you see the updated status right away.
7. For ownership issues on a specific account, use the per-user permission table to fix that one user without touching the rest.

Common Mornings the Repair Tool Is Built For

• A site is throwing a 502 error. The health dashboard usually shows the affected service or a failing config check immediately, and Service Restart or Config Regenerate clears it without opening a terminal. For a deeper walkthrough of every possible cause, see our 502 Bad Gateway troubleshooting guide.
• Disk usage crept past a safe threshold overnight. Disk checks flag it once usage crosses a warning or critical line, and Disk Cleanup or the always-available "Free up disk space" action reclaims space from temp files, cache, trash, and rotated logs. For the manual commands behind the same problem, see how to manage disk space with du, df, and ncdu.
• A domain's files ended up with the wrong owner. The per-user permission table isolates the fix to that one account, instead of a blanket chown -R across the server. Our Linux file permissions guide covers what "wrong ownership" actually breaks and why.
• The panel itself is unreachable. The same fix engine that powers the Repair Tool is also built into Rescue Mode, a standalone recovery service on a separate port, so restarting a service or regenerating a config does not require the main panel to be up.

Why It Matters

Most of the problems that show up on a self-managed server are routine — the same handful of things going wrong in the same handful of ways. The Repair Tool means fixing them does not require remembering the right service-restart command or double-checking a file-ownership command late at night. It is the same idea behind the repair utilities built into other panels, applied to Panelica's own architecture and made safe by design: previews, automatic backups before config changes, and fixes that are scoped narrowly enough not to break what is already working.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can the Repair Tool break my site's configuration?

Config changes are backed up first and validated before being applied; if validation fails, Panelica rolls back automatically.

Will disk cleanup delete my backups?

No. Disk cleanup only removes temporary files, cache, trash, and rotated logs — it never touches databases, backups, or quarantined files.

Who can access the Repair Tool?

It is available to ROOT-level accounts.

What happens if one domain's config fails to regenerate?

Each domain is regenerated and validated independently, so a single failure rolls that one domain back without affecting the others.