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I have Debian 8.3 installed on my vServer, hosting websites and other applications. For instance, my VM didn't boot properly after my hoster rebooted the node. So there must be something that gets loaded only on complete reboot.

What are scenarios where I have to reboot the server?`

  • apt-get upgrade - when libraries get updated?
  • apt-get upgrade - when a new image is installed?
  • other reasons?

Or is a Debian server something that you simply don't have to reboot, ever?

bytecode77
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  • Kernel patches. Have to do a restart for those. Some RHEL-based systems don't have to if you use ksplice, but aside from that, definitely need to reboot. For libraries... not sure. Depends on the library. If it's glibc? Probably. If it's used by one app on the system? Restart that app and you're good. – Parthian Shot Feb 25 '16 at 08:28
  • (Incidentally, you'll want to be updating your glibc given the recent getaddrinfo backdoor completely innocent mistake.) – Parthian Shot Feb 25 '16 at 08:29
  • How do I know if the kernel is patched? If this happens during apt-get upgrade, what message do I get? – bytecode77 Feb 25 '16 at 08:29

1 Answers1

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You should check out a tool called "needrestart", it will scan your system for:

  • the kernel matches the kernel on disk
  • daemons/procs that use old libraries
  • tries to do this for scripting languages as well

It hooks into DPKG, so it will check and recommend after any upgrade.

The package is included in Debian: https://packages.debian.org/jessie/needrestart

lazyfrosch
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  • Cool! As Ra_ suggested in the other question, I also tried "checkrestart", but "needrestart" seems to handle everything for me. +1! – bytecode77 Feb 25 '16 at 17:59