we have CENTOS 5 on DELL servers. some servers have longer than one year did not reboot. Our consultant suggest we need at least reboot once every year to clean out memory junk. What is your opinion?
----- "mcclnx mcc" <mcclnx at yahoo.com.tw> wrote:> we have CENTOS 5 on DELL servers. some servers have longer than one > year did not reboot. Our consultant suggest we need at least reboot > once every year to clean out memory junk. > > What is your opinion? >If you're running a Windows server, yes, a period reboot is necessary to 'clean it out'. However, in Linux land, this is not typically necessary as a 'rule'. You could certainly be running applications with memory leaks or other special circumstances that warrant a clean boot. I have several Linux boxes running a variety of flavors including CentOS, Debian, and even Redhat (think old 8.x/9.x days) with uptimes ranging between 13 months to over two years. They're running perfectly without the 'yearly reboot'. --Tim
Uptime is no longer a badge of honor. Typically there will have been some kernel updates that require a reboot, so a long uptime means they haven't been applied. Also, it is a good idea to reboot periodically to catch anything that was not set up to start on boot correctly. A server should always cleanly start up with all services it needs without the need for human intervention. As for "memory junk", yes and no. This would again be related to updates. If there are long running processes that have since had updates or updates to shared libraries, they may not be using the updated libraries. It would also reset anything that might have a memory leak. However, the idea of "junk" collecting in RAM That needs to be cleaned is not really true. On Thu, Sep 2, 2010 at 1:17 PM, mcclnx mcc <mcclnx at yahoo.com.tw> wrote:> we have CENTOS 5 on DELL servers. ?some servers have longer than one year did not reboot. ?Our consultant suggest we need at least reboot once every year to clean out memory junk. > > What is your opinion? >
On Thu, Sep 2, 2010 at 1:17 PM, mcclnx mcc <mcclnx at yahoo.com.tw> wrote:> we have CENTOS 5 on DELL servers. ?some servers have longer than one year did not reboot. ?Our consultant suggest we need at least reboot once every year to clean out memory junk. > > What is your opinion? >As someone else mentioned, uptime is no reason to brag... That said, I manage one Linux system that's been running continuously for 1,400 days. It will be upgraded in the near future, but it's nonsense that you'd need to reboot to "clean out memory".
At Fri, 3 Sep 2010 01:17:15 +0800 (CST) CentOS mailing list <centos at centos.org> wrote:> > we have CENTOS 5 on DELL servers. some servers have longer than one year did not reboot. Our consultant suggest we need at least reboot once every year to clean out memory junk. > > What is your opinion?You only need to reboot when you do kernel upgrades.> > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > CentOS mailing list > CentOS at centos.org > http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos > >-- Robert Heller -- 978-544-6933 Deepwoods Software -- Download the Model Railroad System http://www.deepsoft.com/ -- Binaries for Linux and MS-Windows heller at deepsoft.com -- http://www.deepsoft.com/ModelRailroadSystem/
> > we have CENTOS 5 on DELL servers. some servers have longer > than one year did not reboot. Our consultant suggest we need > at least reboot once every year to clean out memory junk. > > What is your opinion? >maybe i missed it yet, did anyone mention the old adage... "if it isn't broke, don't fix it?" that would seem to apply in many scenarios... certain exceptions noted of course, yet any good linux admin should be on very close to change logs etc anyways... - rh