Diagnosing services

This guide walks you through the basic checks for a Team assistant deployment: verifying that the Docker Compose services are running, reading service logs, and testing reachability of a remote service such as the database.

Some checks are available directly from the tas-manager menu; the rest are run from the system shell. The Docker Compose project is located in $TAS_COMPOSE_PATH (default ~/tas-compose), where the compose.yaml and .env files reside.

1. Check service status from the menu

In the main menu, go to:

Status → Team assistant

This shows the status of the three application services — tas-frontend, tas-backend, and tas-backend-cron — along with the configured frontend and backend URLs and image names. A dash (—) in the status column means the container is not running.

2. Check all containers from the shell

The menu shows only the three application services. To see the entire set — including supporting and one-shot containers — open the system shell:

Management → System → [!] Open system shell (advanced users only)

Confirm the warning dialog and then run:

cd "$TAS_COMPOSE_PATH"
docker compose ps
docker compose ps --all

• docker compose ps lists the currently running containers.
• docker compose ps --all additionally lists containers that have stopped, including the one-shot init-* containers (see step 3).

Read the STATUS column:

• Up (possibly with (healthy)) means the service is running normally,
• (starting) means the health check has not yet succeeded,
• (unhealthy) or Exited means the service needs attention.

3. Understanding the init containers that exit

The set includes several one-shot initialization containers that perform a single setup task and then intentionally stop:

4. Reading service logs

There is no menu item for viewing logs — read them from the system shell. For example, to check the backend:

docker compose logs tas-backend
docker compose logs --tail=100 --follow tas-backend

• The first command prints the entire log.
• The second shows the last 100 lines and then follows new output live; stop following by pressing Ctrl+C.

Replace tas-backend with the name of any service to check a different container — for example tas-frontend, tas-backend-cron, init-db, or traefik.

5. Testing network access to a remote service

Team assistant connects to a remote Microsoft SQL Server database. To verify that the database host and port are reachable from this machine, use curl from the system shell. Use the TAS_DB_HOSTNAME and TAS_DB_PORT values from the $TAS_COMPOSE_PATH/.env file (the default port is 1433):

curl -v telnet://sql.example.local:1433

A line such as Connected to sql.example.local (…) port 1433 confirms that the network path and port are open. curl does not attempt to log in to the database — it only tests the TCP connection. A Connection refused message or a timeout points to a firewall, a routing problem, or an incorrect host or port.

The same approach works for the frontend and backend HTTP endpoints shown on the Status → Team assistant page, for example:

curl -v <TAS_BACKEND_URL>

6. Checking system resources

In the main menu, go to:

Status → System

This shows the hostname, operating system, network interfaces, and mount points with disk usage.

From the system shell you can check the same, as well as Docker's own usage:

df -h
docker system df

7. Checking the tas-manager log

tas-manager records its own actions and errors to $LOG_FILE (default ~/.local/state/tas-manager.log). Review it when the menu tool itself misbehaves — for example when a maintenance action fails without a clear message. From the system shell:

tail -n 100 "$LOG_FILE"
less "$LOG_FILE"

Returning to the menu

Type exit to leave the system shell and return to the tas-manager menu.