Re: Way OT: How long does your box run for?

• Previous message: Murray Taylor: "Re: sandisk sd 256MB freebsd install"
• In reply to: Garance A Drosihn: "Re: Way OT: How long does your box run for?"
• Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]

To: Garance A Drosihn <drosih@rpi.edu>
Date: Mon, 06 Sep 2004 09:36:08 +1000

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.
****************************************************************
_______________________________________________
freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list
http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions
To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscribe@freebsd.org"

• Previous message: Murray Taylor: "Re: sandisk sd 256MB freebsd install"
• In reply to: Garance A Drosihn: "Re: Way OT: How long does your box run for?"
• Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]