This is why we have UPS ;-)
My father was an HPUX admin that had a server with an uptime of >12 years
I was introduced to homelab by trying to figure out how my uncles setup. It ran for 4 years after he died, 11 years uptime. The estate probate prevented anyone from touching the equipment for the legal fights, and I get a kick out of thinking of how smug he would have been about it.
So, you never update the kernel?
Heard of tuptime? I’ve been using it for a while now, I think I like it.
System startups: 151 since 18:00:05 10/11/15 System shutdowns: 137 ok + 13 bad System life: 9yr 223d 1h 27m 47s
Longest uptime: 106d 5h 34m 28s from 14:17:10 26/03/22 Average uptime: 23d 4h 32m 0s System uptime: 99.81% = 9yr 216d 12h 31m 51s
Longest downtime: 4d 23h 30m 48s from 10:36:53 14/09/23 Average downtime: 1h 2m 46s System downtime: 0.19% = 6d 12h 55m 56s
Current uptime: 25d 0h 34m 25s since 20:25:37 15/11/25
Does it work retrospectively?
Nope it creates a little database, which you could manualy edit I suppose.
Are we not doing kernel upgrades?
Was about to say, “or if you’re running Arch, the last time you updated the kernel or systemd version, so probably last week or summit.”
Yeah that’s about the only time I have to do reboots at work which are 99% linux. Well the production ones anyway.
Or the other reason is my lab having power issues due to malfunctioning UPSes, faulty NEMA L6-30 plugs, janky 240v circuit breakers or… I’m beginning to think my lab is electrically cursed.
While technically the truth, it can be a hassle to make sure you restart all relevant services after updating a given library.
I just like being able to restart underlying system to take care of any possible straggler without thinking, and the services broadly be provided by multiple systems so the “experience” is starting up through a rolling reboot
At least in my experience the chances that I move or replace hardware are much higher than the chances for a power outage.
For me I won’t be replacing and video cards or ram sticks for the foreseeable future.
Same… but I also remember a single outage in the last 15 or so years.
Pretty sure everybody is missing the joke. The joke is that Debian packages are so stable and stale that you likely will need a reboot before an update.
Also, it’s a joke…please patch your boxes, k?
I’ve got a patch in my boxers right now.
Oh boxes.
I got obsessed with uptime in the early 2000s, but for my desktop Slackware box. It ran a bunch of servers and services and crap but only for me, not heavy loads of public users. Anyway, I reached 6 years of uptime without a UPS and was aiming for 7 when a power outage got me.
Skill issue. Next time you can open up the computers power supply while it’s running, splice in a second power cable, and attach a UPS without powering down or getting electrocuted.
For legal reasons, /s
Not sure what your signature is supposed to do here but now I have 3rd degree burns and a fireball has engulfed my office wall
But more importantly, did your uptime get reset?
“Uptime” — aka the anxiety meter for every sysadmin.
Can I ask, what is the advantage of a Debian server over a True Nas one? Asking because I set up True Nas and wondering if I should switch it to Debian
True nas is nas software that moonlights as a server. Debian is a linux distro commonly used as the operating system for servers due to its incredible stability and reliability among other things. So reliable infact that it’s used as the operating system for true nas scale! So unless your using the core version (that runs bsd) then your already using it. As far as rawdogging Debian on your hardware goes, id recommend against it unless you’re looking to seriously up your admin game. No web interfaces, lots of time in the terminal ( command line ) and more configuration files than is anyway reasonable. And we haven’t even started on virtual machines like proxmox ( also Debian based! ) or container critters like docker and kubernetes. (Iirc true nas uses kubernetes under the hood)
alt-text
___alt-text: The “I lied, I don’t have netflix” meme template. The girl with heavy dark rings around her eyes points a gun at the observer, with various images inserted in the background. The images include references to debian, libreboot, rsync, sed&awk, cron. The text reads: “I lied, I don’t have netflix - Take off your shoes, we’re going to learn to setup a NAS with Debian customized and automated to the bone and also automate the deployment process with Kubernetes. Everything will have 3-2-1 backups and controls will be networked to the volume slider in the radio of your car. We will use the motherboard of your calculator because it’s supported by libreboot.”
Small correction: since the newest version there only is Trunas Scale, so the Debian derivative, which they now call Community Edition. The BSD variant has been decommissioned as far as I know.
Debian is well known for maintaining established packages in its repos. This means that all of the software is thoroughly tested, and therefore (usually) stable; however, the software in question is generally older, so it also means that sometimes you’ll have to find your own approach if you want to run any newer services.
At some point when I am less busy again I think I am gonna swap back to a debian based system because my experience on arch and red hat systems just hasnt been as good (this may be because I started on Debian based systems and keep trying to use commands that dont work on the other ones out of muscle memory)
I get bored every so often and move all the important stuff to an external drive or a separate internal one and completely change my os
I am on manjaro but I have also run arch, red hat, void, mint, Debian, Ubuntu and a bunch of others that I either put on laptops or something similar as messing around with devices
Tails and slitaz have to be my favorite to run from a USB but peppermint isn’t the worst
I just did the contrary. Moved from debian to arch. After the update to trixie my network stack completely died somehow, so I’m going back to arch.
I have had minimal issues from my manjaro desktop but I just dont like it as much as my mint based systems because everything feels wrong and I can barely remember how to update my graphics drivers on manjaro vs mint where I am confident I could run my entire system mostly command line from installs to updates and random other shit that I just can’t remember how to do through arch systems because I dont run them as hard for some reason
I like having a consistent update and reboot schedule. Uptime feels overrated over stability and clearing the RAM occasionally.
I definitely have some Docker containers that randomly stop working, and they are more often consistently fixed by a reboot of the machine rather than a reboot of the container or the Docker service.
Not to mention the security implications of not rebooting after certain updates.
Clearing the ram? For what purpose?
- Uptime : up 2 weeks, 5 days, 2 hours, 7 minutes
Had to reboot due to Jellyfin weirdness, It’s not happened since so maybe it was patched whatever happened.
They screwed up their upgrade script in the release around then. I spent an hour manually fixing it on my system. I’d imagine they sorted it with a point release shortly after but I haven’t checked.
Hardware errors often cause system instability hence this is false.
That’s ridiculous. It’s much more complicated than that.
You need to check NUT.
Deez? 🌰🐿️
