hello everybody,

lately i have experienced a problem (i don't really know if it's a problem) with my debian server. when i logged on to my machine and issued the "last" command, i found this entry:

giving the "uptime" command proved the idea, that the machine had obviously rebooted automatically. the uptime was approx. 140 days.

now my question, which this entry (since i am a new user, the system would not let me post URLs) could not solve:

is it possible that debian reboots periodically automatically!?
i mean is there a switch that influences system behavior in this way?
(since i do not want the server to reboot...)


to cover some counterquestions;

<> there is no entry in the cron-files that says "reboot" or runs "init-scripts"
<> the machine runs 'Linux version 2.4.20-021stab028.18.777-smp'
<> the machine is a Virtuozo VPS, maybe the host was rebooted?

does anybody have an idea?

I guess the latest remark is probably the most likely. Did you inquire at your ISP about that?

Debian, and Linux in general, is stable enough to run endlessly without rebooting. Nevertheless it's quite beneficial to reboot once in a while. It clears out temporary files and such, decluttering the system. On modern hardware the whole rebooting process shouldn't take much more than about a minute or so. Especially if the OS doesn't load unnessacery drivers

no, i didn't... but i will, since the last backups are missing, too.

i agree, that from time to time a machine should be restarted.
the big "but..." here is, that i didn't test my last startup-config.
so if the machine reboots without my permission so to say, i could have
run into several problems. it rebooted at 3 in the morning, so obviousley
i wasn't awake...

i certainly don't want to be called in the middle of the night, just
because a server crashed and wouldn't startup again.

thanks for your reply

cheers