[H-GEN] rebooting system

[Robert Brockway]

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On Sat, 20 Sep 2003, Richard wrote:

> I access my linux box remotely only (no monitor, keyboard or mouse attached)
> and I was just wondering if there's a way to get my system to automatically
> reboot once a week (at some ungodly hour of the night when I should be in
> bed)? Even better, is it possible for it to only reboot if no one is using
> it?

You could probably run your shutdown -r now from root's crontab.

I have to make a couple of comments here.

1/ I tell people to never use automated reboots.  I've known
people/companies who did this and it has bitten them.  If you want to
reboot, have an admin around to deal with any potential problems.

2/  What is the purpose of the reboot?  Unix boxes shouldn't be rebooted
just because they've been up for a while.  If the kernel has a memory leak
(a serious situation) you might consider it, otherwise I would really
recommend against it.

If you are concerned about system changes then schedule a reboot after
major changes.  If I do a lot of work on the startup scripts or if a new
version of libc is installed on a running system (say through Debian's
package management, where this can be safely done) I will schedule a
reboot at an appropriate time, while I am standing there and have time to
deal with any problems.  I'll normally have taken an incremental backup
immediately before the changes too (especially in the case of libc
upgrades :)

Rob

-- 
Robert Brockway B.Sc. email: robert at timetraveller.org, zzbrock at uqconnect.net
Linux counter project ID #16440 (http://counter.li.org)
"The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens" -Baha'u'llah

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