Date: Mon, 06 Sep 2004 09:36:08 +1000 From: Murray Taylor <murraytaylor@bytecraftsystems.com> To: Garance A Drosihn <drosih@rpi.edu> Cc: Andy Holyer <andyh@hhbb.co.uk> Subject: Re: Way OT: How long does your box run for? Message-ID: <1094427368.43374.14.camel@wstaylorm.dand06.au.bytecraft.au.com> In-Reply-To: <p06110445bd5e7d90c525@[128.113.24.47]> References: <8F6BD2D2-FD85-11D8-8EBC-000D93511A6A@hhbb.co.uk> <p06110445bd5e7d90c525@[128.113.24.47]>
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698 days - Cyrus IMAP server. Had to shut it down to move the server farm to another building... On Sat, 2004-09-04 at 06:41, Garance A Drosihn wrote: > At 9:45 AM +0100 9/3/04, Andy Holyer wrote: > >I explained that generally some upgrade comes along that requires > >a reboot, but I realized that I don't know how long a box would > >stay up in the maximum. So, come on, this should be fun, what's > >the biggest uptime you've ever had for a BSD box? > > I don't think it would ever "require" a reboot. The question is > whether you need to reboot to apply some prudent updates and > security fixes. > > I have one server that I try to keep up as much as possible. The > three longest runs on that machine are: > > 373 days 10 hours, ending in July 2000 (long power outage) > 599 days 14 hours, ending in Sept 2002 (UPS failure) > 497 days 18 hours, ending in Apr 2004 (disk failure) > > The first one ended because a power-station going into campus was > flooded (due to some construction in the area), and the building > did not have any power for about four hours. My UPS lasted about > three and a half hours before giving out. > > The second one was that the UPS itself melted down! Well, it did > not quite melt, but it was seriously overheating and I had to > shutdown all the machines connected to it and unplug everything. > The UPS was literally too hot for me to touch, and once it cooled > down enough (which took about four hours), I could see that the > battery had started to melt. > > The third was a disk problem, but I also believe it was a OS error > because the disk *getting* the error was one I should have been > able to ignore. However the OS was confused over which disk got > the error, and it kept resetting the disk-controller for the main > system disk, instead of the one for the disk which had the errors. > So, I suspect the fault for that reboot is half hardware and half > the OS itself. > > If you are going for long up times, then the stupidest thing you > can do is "install it and forget it". While I have long uptimes > on this machine, I also have only a few network services running, > and there are only two or three people who can log onto the > machine (and I trust them). I use the ports collection to keep > many things up-to-date, and for some things in the base system > (like sendmail), I recompile them on a different machine and > then copy the pieces over to this server. So, I manage to apply > the vast majority of security fixes, even though I do not reboot > and I do not have to stop/restart the main service that this > machine provides. -- Murray Taylor Special Projects Engineer --------------------------------- Bytecraft Systems & Entertainment P: +61 3 8710 2555 F: +61 3 8710 2599 D: +61 3 9238 4275 M: +61 417 319 256 E: murraytaylor@bytecraftsystems.com or visit us on the web http://www.bytecraftsystems.com http://www.bytecraftentertainment.com --------------------------------------------------------------- The information transmitted in this e-mail is for the exclusive use of the intended addressee and may contain confidential and/or privileged material. Any review, re-transmission, dissemination or other use of it, or the taking of any action in reliance upon this information by persons and/or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you received this in error, please inform the sender and/or addressee immediately and delete the material. E-mails may not be secure, may contain computer viruses and may be corrupted in transmission. Please carefully check this e-mail (and any attachment) accordingly. No warranties are given and no liability is accepted for any loss or damage caused by such matters. --------------------------------------------------------------- **************************************************************** This Email has been scanned for Viruses by MailMarshal. ****************************************************************
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