From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Sep 3 15:30:35 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8E74D16A4D0 for ; Fri, 3 Sep 2004 15:30:35 +0000 (GMT) Received: from smtp1.utdallas.edu (smtp1.utdallas.edu [129.110.10.12]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5C87843D41 for ; Fri, 3 Sep 2004 15:30:35 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from pauls@utdallas.edu) Received: from utd49554 (utd49554.utdallas.edu [129.110.3.85]) by smtp1.utdallas.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id D9F473892A3 for ; Fri, 3 Sep 2004 10:28:13 -0500 (CDT) Date: Fri, 03 Sep 2004 10:28:15 -0500 From: Paul Schmehl To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Message-ID: In-Reply-To: <41387C64.2090304@daleco.biz> References: <8F6BD2D2-FD85-11D8-8EBC-000D93511A6A@hhbb.co.uk> <41387C64.2090304@daleco.biz> X-Mailer: Mulberry/3.1.6 (Linux/x86) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Subject: Re: Way OT: How long does your box run for? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 03 Sep 2004 15:30:35 -0000 --On Friday, September 03, 2004 09:15:00 AM -0500 "Kevin D. Kinsey, DaleCo, S.P." wrote: > Andy Holyer wrote: > >> The other day I was explaining something to my boss (a suit), > > > You're a patient one, then ... > >> and I mentioned that a FreeBSD box would easily run for a year or more. >> "Oh", he said, "and then you've got to reboot it?". I explained that >> generally >> some upgrade comes along that reqwuires 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? >> > > For a publicly accessible host, around 150 days, which is probably too > much; > generally things start to feel "stale" by then, to me, and security > paranoia > grows in direct correlation to system uptime (which should reflect more on > my perceived knowledge of security and paranoia than on the Project's > software....) In the old days, we used to have boxes with uptimes in the 900 day range. Nowadays that would be insanity. As a security professional, I get irked that some of our boxes only get patched annually (because they only get rebooted annually). It's far too risky a proposition these days. Paul Schmehl (pauls@utdallas.edu) Adjunct Information Security Officer The University of Texas at Dallas AVIEN Founding Member http://www.utdallas.edu/ir/security/