when to reboot?

I am running a VPS and so far it has been great compared to what i am use to, which is reseller accounts..my question is, when should i, if ever, reboot the server? I see it has a graceful and forced reboot..server has been up for 8 days. is there a rule of thumb?

 

Hello there,

Typically, you should only need to reboot when the kernel is updated. If you are using an OpenVZ server, the kernel is linked to the host node, so you cannot update it. Using KVM or Xen, you have your own kernel, and it will need to be updated at some point.

Regards,
Chris

 

@RHS-Chris is right. you only need to reboot your vps if it has its own kernel and it needs to be updated.

sometimes when a package is updated, one reboots the server/vps so that the updated packages use the updated libraries etc.. but there is really no need for that as the following command:

# lsof | grep 'DEL.*lib' | cut -f 1 -d ' ' | sort -u

Code (markup):

will show the packages that need to be restarted so that they use the updated libraries, files etc...

 

Thanks to all for the help.. I'm new at the vps deal and want everything running smoothly

 

Hi , I would also only consider reboot if there were issues with process/locks/nfs issues that you couldnt clear but you should be perfectly fine otherwise.

 

Reboot is also recommended on the servers if you wish to perform a File System ChecK [FSCK]. But, not required when you have software virtualization. Has to be performed on the node.