Hi, I’m Hafeez — online I go by unixshadow.
I’ve spent over 30 years running Unix and Linux systems for a living. I started on midrange systems — VAX/VMS and Alpha — back when a server room sounded like a jet engine and a reboot meant a field trip. From there it was Solaris, then Linux (RHEL, AlmaLinux, Debian, Ubuntu), VMware virtualization, NetApp/EMC storage, HPC grid clusters, and eventually cloud infrastructure: LAMP stacks, Oracle RAC, and large patched, hardened Linux fleets.
Along the way I’ve worked across financial services, telecom, retail, and managed cloud infrastructure — including the better part of a decade running systems where downtime simply wasn’t an option. These days I build and maintain cloud platform environments for customers across the US, UK, Canada, and India.
Fun fact: I can still write VMS DCL from memory. This impresses everyone over 50 and absolutely no one under it — but the troubleshooting instincts it drilled into me work on every system built since.
Why unixshadow.com?
After three decades of provisioning servers, fighting 3 AM outages, evaluating hosting providers with real money on the line, and patching everything from kernel vulnerabilities to OpenSSL heartbleeds — I’ve developed strong opinions about what makes good infrastructure, and what doesn’t.
This site is where I share those opinions: honest VPS and hosting reviews, practical Linux guides, and free sysadmin tools I actually use myself. No marketing fluff, no paid placements dressed up as reviews. When I recommend something here, it’s because I’d run it in production myself.
The short version
- 30+ years in Unix/Linux systems engineering
- Midrange (VAX/VMS, Alpha) → enterprise Unix (Solaris) → Linux → virtualization → cloud
- Sectors: financial services, telecom, retail, managed cloud infrastructure
- Technologies: VMS, Solaris, RHEL/AlmaLinux/Debian/Ubuntu, VMware, NetApp/EMC, HPC/Grid, LAMP, Apache/Tomcat, Oracle RAC, Ansible, Puppet, Commvault
- Seneca Polytechnic — Information Science diploma, High Honors
- Azure Fundamentals, ITIL V3 Foundations
- Government of Canada Secret (Level II) security clearance
You can find my full professional background on LinkedIn.
Disclosure
unixshadow.com participates in affiliate programs. If you buy hosting through links on this site, I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you — it keeps the servers (and the tools) running.