Also, if you're running, oh, say, and email or web server on you server
rack, you might be concerned if the server were rebooted, since the
service would be unavaliable for a while. On a heavily-loaded email
server with a large (ext2) mail partition with quota support enabled,
the checkquota proces alone will be intolerably long for the middle of
the day.

My suggestion: purchase a KVM. In my case, I've got a low-end 4-port KVM
on my racks. There are about 12 machines there, but most are running
Debian, so I rarely need a console connection on those. I leave windows
machines and our voice mail server attached to ports 1-3. Port 4 I have
as a "roamer" and attach to whichever Debian box I need at the moment
(had a machine that tended to lock up and segfault for instance).

By adding a KVM, not only have I eliminated the possibility of rebooting
a Linux machine when I intended to log into an NT server, I have also
largely emiminated having to rummage around the back side of the rack
swapping cables. I hadn't realized that was a problem until one of our
techs went through like a bull in a china shop and knocked the power
cord loose from my email server. Now, since I've made the NT boxes all a
pushbutton away, I'm the only one who ever needs to swap cables. Since I
had to clean up the mess whenever the mail server got abruptly booted, I
am much more careful than the people who caused the crashes.

As for pride:

SNMP station:
$ uptime
  5:38pm  up 272 days, 19:12,  1 user,  load average: 0.22, 0.59, 0.60
$

Utility web server/general use server:
$ uptime
  5:41pm  up 205 days, 18:26,  1 user,  load average: 1.03, 1.03, 1.00
$

mail server:
$ uptime
  5:42pm  up 285 days, 23:40,  1 user,  load average: 0.01, 0.02, 0.00
$

Web server:
$ uptime
  5:43pm  up 285 days, 23:38,  2 users,  load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
$


... and people ask why we run Debian :-)

--Rich

Paul Wright wrote:
> 
> >
> > so what does 114 days of uptime buy you?
> >
> 
> A sense of pride.
> 
> >
> > does it matter that much???
> >
> 
> To me, no.  To others, maybe.
> 
> --
> Paul T. Wright <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> -currently seeking employment-
> 
> --


-- 

_________________________________________________________
                         
Rich Puhek               
ETN Systems Inc.         
_________________________________________________________

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