asterisk users - Oct 2004 - Quick question regarding daily restart of asterisk

Hi All,

I have a quick question regarding restarting (and/or 
stopping/restarting) asterisk daily -- Should it be done?

I've seen conflicting answers, some people have told me that the only 
reason for asterisk to be stopped/started daily was for mpg123 causing 
many childs, which has since been fixed using 'no buffer' or
'nb'
appended to the line in musiconhold.conf.

Others have told me there is no reason whatsoever to restart/stop it, 
yet there's instructions on how to do it on the wiki, are these just 
outdated?

Is there any other reason why one would want to stop and restart 
asterisk daily? (or at any other scheduled time?)

On a related note, is asterisk -rx "restart now" the equivalent of 
asterisk -rx "stop now" && /usr/sbin/safe_asterisk (or
whatever command
is used to restart it)?. I have a job cronned on a slackware system to 
restart it daily using -rx "restart now" and it creates a new PID, and
Process Time, but when I run the same thing on Redhat 9 I get an error 
saying that it exited on sig 13. I'm sure this is just a redhat specific 
thing as this isn't the only problem I'm running into, but it would be 
nice to find some answers.

Thanks,
Matt

I wouldn't recommend a reload. More than once I've issued a
"reload" to
Asterisk and it just sat there, never actually reloaded. Went into limbo,
wouldn't accept any future commands either. Had to kill -9 the process and
load it again. Plus certain changes you make, like certain changes to the
iax.conf file, don't get loaded when you do a reload. I spent an hour trying
to fix a problem, modify the iax, reload asterisk, problem still there.
Finally stopped asterisk, started it clean, problem was gone, same exact
config. 

As far as "stop now" and starting it again. I don't truly see the
need.
Every once in a while I've had to do it to fix a quality issue or memory
problem or something odd. Maybe instead of once a day, once a week. Would
probably be good. I may implement this myself.

I'd recommend the "asterisk -rx "stop now" &&
/usr/sbin/safe_asterisk"
method to accomplish your goal. Maybe even a "stop now" &&
sleep 1 &&
killall -9 asterisk && sleep 1 && /usr/sbin/safe_asterisk"

Would take a little longer, but would ensure Asterisk is dead before
reloading it. 


-----Original Message-----
From: asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com
[mailto:asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Matt G
Sent: Monday, October 18, 2004 5:12 PM
To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion
Subject: [Asterisk-Users] Quick question regarding daily restart of asterisk

Hi All,

I have a quick question regarding restarting (and/or 
stopping/restarting) asterisk daily -- Should it be done?

I've seen conflicting answers, some people have told me that the only 
reason for asterisk to be stopped/started daily was for mpg123 causing 
many childs, which has since been fixed using 'no buffer' or
'nb'
appended to the line in musiconhold.conf.

Others have told me there is no reason whatsoever to restart/stop it, 
yet there's instructions on how to do it on the wiki, are these just 
outdated?

Is there any other reason why one would want to stop and restart 
asterisk daily? (or at any other scheduled time?)

On a related note, is asterisk -rx "restart now" the equivalent of 
asterisk -rx "stop now" && /usr/sbin/safe_asterisk (or
whatever command
is used to restart it)?. I have a job cronned on a slackware system to 
restart it daily using -rx "restart now" and it creates a new PID, and
Process Time, but when I run the same thing on Redhat 9 I get an error 
saying that it exited on sig 13. I'm sure this is just a redhat specific 
thing as this isn't the only problem I'm running into, but it would be 
nice to find some answers.

Thanks,
Matt

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I can tell you from first hand experience that unless you've got +1000 
extensions completely configured, it's not a problem in the slightest.

After that, you'll start getting "to many files open" messages (on
a
vanilla system install) and the server will go temporarily unresponsive 
(which can be semi-remedied by modifying your OS's max open files - but 
even then * had problems).

On Oct 18, 2004, at 5:11 PM, Matt G wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> I have a quick question regarding restarting (and/or 
> stopping/restarting) asterisk daily -- Should it be done?
>
> I've seen conflicting answers, some people have told me that the only 
> reason for asterisk to be stopped/started daily was for mpg123 causing 
> many childs, which has since been fixed using 'no buffer' or
'nb'
> appended to the line in musiconhold.conf.
>
> Others have told me there is no reason whatsoever to restart/stop it, 
> yet there's instructions on how to do it on the wiki, are these just 
> outdated?
>
> Is there any other reason why one would want to stop and restart 
> asterisk daily? (or at any other scheduled time?)
>
> On a related note, is asterisk -rx "restart now" the equivalent
of
> asterisk -rx "stop now" && /usr/sbin/safe_asterisk (or
whatever
> command is used to restart it)?. I have a job cronned on a slackware 
> system to restart it daily using -rx "restart now" and it creates
a
> new PID, and Process Time, but when I run the same thing on Redhat 9 I 
> get an error saying that it exited on sig 13. I'm sure this is just a 
> redhat specific thing as this isn't the only problem I'm running
into,
> but it would be nice to find some answers.
>
> Thanks,
> Matt
>
> _______________________________________________
> Asterisk-Users mailing list
> Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com
> http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
> To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit:
>   http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
>

> I have a quick question regarding restarting (and/or 
> stopping/restarting) asterisk daily -- Should it be done?
> 
> I've seen conflicting answers, some people have told me that the only 
> reason for asterisk to be stopped/started daily was for mpg123 causing 
> many childs, which has since been fixed using 'no buffer' or
'nb'
> appended to the line in musiconhold.conf.
> 
> Others have told me there is no reason whatsoever to restart/stop it, 
> yet there's instructions on how to do it on the wiki, are these just 
> outdated?
> 
> Is there any other reason why one would want to stop and restart 
> asterisk daily? (or at any other scheduled time?)
> 
> On a related note, is asterisk -rx "restart now" the equivalent
of
> asterisk -rx "stop now" && /usr/sbin/safe_asterisk (or
whatever command
> is used to restart it)?. I have a job cronned on a slackware system to 
> restart it daily using -rx "restart now" and it creates a new
PID, and
> Process Time, but when I run the same thing on Redhat 9 I get an error 
> saying that it exited on sig 13. I'm sure this is just a redhat
specific
> thing as this isn't the only problem I'm running into, but it would
be
> nice to find some answers.
The only reason to ever restart any server is if there are problems
that have not yet been fixed (such as memory not being released, etc).
Obviously some exceptions for MS stuff.

Some older Admin's will suggest that systems should be rebooted weekly,
etc. That's only needed "if" there is a problem. The effort should
be
focused on fixing the root-cause, not rebooting.

This tends to be a religious issue.   I guess I am an older admin.  :)  
I come from the school of thought that it is a good idea to
reboot a server that is not meant to be used interactivly (console or 
terminal) on a schedule.  Most software does not require it.  In my 
experience, the systems that have some sort of auto reboot, typically 
run for years without any real maintenance.

My * box reboots itself on sundays at 0300.  It also rsyncs config 
files and voicemail on an hourly basis with another server ( that does 
not reboot.  All it does is act as a samba and nfs fileserver.)  Calls 
are scp as soon as they are combined after the call.


---

David Hickman

PH 	314-433-0133 x31	Fax	314-865-4752
AIM: 		fsckrmrf		ICQ:	7059948
YahooIM:	dhickman

PGP Prefered - Use current key from the keyservers.
On Oct 18, 2004, at 16:11, Matt G wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> I have a quick question regarding restarting (and/or 
> stopping/restarting) asterisk daily -- Should it be done?
>
> I've seen conflicting answers, some people have told me that the only 
> reason for asterisk to be stopped/started daily was for mpg123 causing 
> many childs, which has since been fixed using 'no buffer' or
'nb'
> appended to the line in musiconhold.conf.
>
> Others have told me there is no reason whatsoever to restart/stop it, 
> yet there's instructions on how to do it on the wiki, are these just 
> outdated?
>
> Is there any other reason why one would want to stop and restart 
> asterisk daily? (or at any other scheduled time?)
>
> On a related note, is asterisk -rx "restart now" the equivalent
of
> asterisk -rx "stop now" && /usr/sbin/safe_asterisk (or
whatever
> command is used to restart it)?. I have a job cronned on a slackware 
> system to restart it daily using -rx "restart now" and it creates
a
> new PID, and Process Time, but when I run the same thing on Redhat 9 I 
> get an error saying that it exited on sig 13. I'm sure this is just a 
> redhat specific thing as this isn't the only problem I'm running
into,
> but it would be nice to find some answers.
>
> Thanks,
> Matt
>
> _______________________________________________
> Asterisk-Users mailing list
> Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com
> http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
> To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit:
>   http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
>

On Tue, 19 Oct 2004, David H Hickman wrote:
> This tends to be a religious issue.   I guess I am an older admin.  :)  
> I come from the school of thought that it is a good idea to
> reboot a server that is not meant to be used interactivly (console or 
> terminal) on a schedule.  Most software does not require it.  In my 
> experience, the systems that have some sort of auto reboot, typically 
> run for years without any real maintenance.
Most of our servers stay up until there is some need (such as power 
reconfiguration) to power them down. The time between restarts is usually 
about a year. 

The asterisk box is close to half a year now. Asterisk itself has been 
restarted once since we needed to change a configuration that required a 
restart to reload.

Peter