Reboot Maintanence

[David Willams]

What is a maintenance reboot and how often it is required...

This might be a more generic type of question.. and could be the re-boot of a hp-ux/solaris box.

I understand, after a change in h/w or OS level patch/update etc.. done.. a reboot of the server is necessary.

Just be-cos the server is up and running for 365 days.. will I have to go for a maintenance reboot??????

[Patrick Wallek · Accepted solution]

>>>Just be-cos the server is up and running for 365 days.. will I have to go for a maintenance reboot??????

Not unless you are having problems. I have several servers that have been up longer than that and are running fine (hopefully I didn't just jinx myself!!).

If you don't have to reboot, don't do it. A reboot for the sake of a reboot to prevent problems is very Windows-centric thinking.

A HP-UX (or any other Unix, and maybe Linux, server) should be able to run for years if the application is well behaved.

[David Willams]

that's answers my query, thanks Mr.Wallek

[Shibin_2]

Just because server is up and running for 365 days, you do not need to reboot it.

Not all patching requires reboot. It will be described in the patch description. Most OS specific patch bundles required reboot. But application related patches may or may not require reboot.

Rebooting of a server is depends on your application / system performance and other things, such as clearing a dead processes, or to clear hung socket connections etc.


In HP-UX, init S ( init s ) will boot into system administration mode. This is also known as single user mode. This will be necessary, only when you have to perform some critical system administration task and at the same time, nobody others should login ( e.g. correcting /etc/passwd files, retrieving root password, etc ).

Hope this clarifies.

[David Willams]

thank you

[Dennis Handly]

>Shibin: In HP-UX, init S (init s) will boot into system administration mode.

Typically using init(1m) to go to single user mode doesn't unmount the filesystems you need unmounted. You need to reboot.

[Shibin_2]

Thanks Dennis, you are right.