When to Reboot Server

[compunet2]

I see the Graceful & Forceful reboot command in WHM, however when do you use it? Do you normally reboot only if there is a problem, or do you reboot on a weekly or monthly basis just to clear things out? I know with Windows, I usually reboot ever few weeks just to clear things out, but I wasn't sure if Linux would be the same.

Ed

 

[xsenses]

I am not sure either, but if a reboot is not needed for some sort of installation the longest I have let it ride is 27 days. I guess I just gotta see if it is going to restart

 

[PWSowner]

Originally posted by compunet2
I know with Windows, I usually reboot ever few weeks just to clear things out

Wow, I'll trade you computers. My home (windows) computer reboots itself at least once/day. I never reboot my server if it's not necessary. I was told that the way unix/linux works, it does not need rebooting to "do a cleanup". Only time my server is rebooted is for software upgrades, or occasional crashes. Over the last 10 months it's been about every 2 months average.

I wish my home computer was that dependable.

Also, I heard of one server that was up for just over a year. Only reason it went down was for an apache upgrade.

 

[ecoutez]

Reboot only when necessary. There are very few times that you'll need to reboot a Linux box. The best reason I can think of is when updating the Kernel. Just about everything else you'll update will not need a reboot.

If the box is remote, there are a LOT of good reasons not to needlessly reboot. When scheduling a reboot, we do them only when there is someone onsite to assist should the box fail to come up, and/or when the remote rebooters clearly are responding (and hopefully working).

Rebooting a UNIX box to "see if it reboots" is a little like stopping ever 50 miles on a road trip to make sure your starter motor is working. All that 'testing' is just gonna lead to quicker failure, and you might not be in a very good place when your testing finds a failure.

- Jason

 

[silversurfer]

Linux doesn't have the memory leak issues Windows seems to have.

It also works a lot better running each application in protected mode. So if any application crash, it will only crash itself and not bring down the whole system (like Windows)

There's no real need to reboot the machine except when

1. You update the kernel
2. Or you did some setting changes (eg. changing main ip of server) that requires a reboot.

else, it's not surprising to have boxes running for a full year without a reboot.

 

[fujiwara takumi]

my uptime is currently 60 days and climbing. im not going to reboot unless something starts lagging...thats microsoft mentality.

 

[NNNils]

It happens pretty often (relatively) that a box does not come up after reboot, why is that?

 

[kcdworks]

Originally posted by NNNils
It happens pretty often (relatively) that a box does not come up after reboot, why is that?

I've never had that problem with any of our servers. Our main production box has an uptime currently of 115 days 6 hours 51 minutes ... we almost never reboot, because I never see a reason.

 

[ozzi4648]

Originally posted by silversurfer
Linux doesn't have the memory leak issues Windows seems to have.

Actually it does. When users are running sloppy coded cgi and php then memory leaks are possible even on Linux. You'd be surprised how much memory leaking is actually occuring.

 

[maverick]

I'm seeing the memory usage of our server gradually climbing (about 10% increase per day), until eventually I reset it and it all starts again.

How can I figure out what program is the culprit?

Mav.

 

[sexy_guy]

top?

 

[AceWeb]

Originally posted by kcdworks
I've never had that problem with any of our servers. Our main production box has an uptime currently of 115 days 6 hours 51 minutes ... we almost never reboot, because I never see a reason.

That is good. May I ask how are you doing Kernel upgrades without rebooting then ?

Thanks.

 

[maverick]

Top is useful. Thanks for that sexy_guy. So why the large disparity between the memory usage shown under Server Status in WHM and that shown in Top. Top seems to shown about 95% memory use, while in WHM it says only about 20%?

Mav.

 

[msstore]

I have had a poor response to rebooting. I have tried to reboot three times and it has hung three times.
I am currently working on a VDS running Virtuozzo and Linux 7.3.
It doesn't matter if I 'gracefully reboot' or 'forcefully reboot' using WHM, it simply won't restart.

Pretty frustrating when I have to email tech support to reboot it for me (sometimes a 12 hour turn around).

Is this typical?