This thread is reminding me of Cinderella: if you don't reboot the machine by midnight, the server turns into a pumpkin.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
tamitot
and it will be a nightmare if you are tasked to do a reboot of these long running machines... lolz. might not come up like you expected them to.
My only concern with a very long-running system would be the lack of security updates. But, giving the admin the benefit of the doubt, that he/she is not an idiot, there are scenarios when even updates aren't important (e.g. a non-public machine accessed only by trusted users for a specific task ... if it ain't broke ...).
No offense intended, but suggesting a regular reboot for no reason other than to keep unidentified gremlins at bay sounds more like superstition than system administration to me. If simply running an operating system for extended periods of time renders it unbootable through some mechanism that's thwarted by regular reboots, one is forced to conclude that the operating system in question is unfit for production use.
With regard to hardware, if anything, due to the thermal stress involved, needlessly rebooting on a regular basis is a good way to shorten the machine's lifespan.
Regards,
Your Fairy Godmother
07-20-2011
