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Is there a non-opiniated evaluation/assessment/study of why a long system uptime is something which is worth to achieve?

Pro:

  • Long uptime - stable system
  • Linux system does not necessarily need a reboot on updates

Contra:

  • Fast pacing changes require approaches like dynamic infrastructures and frequent updates
  • After long time (years) do you really know you could restore (reinstall) such system from a disaster?

As observed today:

  • A quite old RedHat system with an uptime for half a year
  • Changes in the networking environment have an ambigous effect that some packages go through, some not
  • After reboot, works
J. Doe
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  • My own experience is that with long uptime, problems may accumulate. Restarting, however infrequently, may have a beneficial effect on performance. – harrymc May 31 '21 at 13:19

1 Answers1

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You fell victim to the Goodhart's law:

When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.

High uptime is not the goal - availability is. And availability is achieved with a combination of uptime and redundancy.

gronostaj
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  • I reboot my nix box for updates that require it - that ends up being about every 2 - 3 months. It does remain stable & more importantly *always available* in between times. – Tetsujin May 31 '21 at 18:03