The Sysadmin's Daily Grind: Uptimed
Conspiracy of the Undead

© Serj Siz`kov, Fotolia
Who has the longest uptime? Linux systems used to win hands down when it comes to maximum uptime without rebooting. Today, uptime statistics help admins with monitoring tasks and discovering tricky bugs.
The times when I showed off servers with 1,000 days of uptime to make my colleagues from the Windows team jealous are long gone. If I get caught with a Methuselah like this today, I can expect to answer embarrassing questions about whether I am afraid of kernel updates. (The answer to this is: Yes! I use some fairly exotic RAID controllers now because I shot myself in the foot when I updated to 2.6.27 – ouch!)
Security freaks tell scary stories about the exploits they guess will work on systems that nobody has bothered booting for a year or so. Bragging can't be the only reason why so many admins use Uptimed [1], a daemon that logs a system's uptime over an extended period of time. It makes sense for devices that are not otherwise accessible for monitoring, for reasons of location or security – you get to know exactly when the power supply last failed, or a hardware component died on you.
You can use the /etc/uptimed.conf configuration file to control Uptimed's behavior. The entry
LOG_MAXIMUM_ENTRIES=20
tells the tool to restrict the list of saved uptimes to 20 readable entries.
LOG_MINIMUM_UPTIMED=12h
lets me tell the daemon not to start writing entries until the computer has achieved at least 12 hours of uptime. This makes sense to suppress the intermezzi between two successive reboots, as would be the case if you need to repair or rebuild and try out a new kernel module (you guessed it, my RAID controllers…). You can also define milestones in the configuration file, and have the software notify you by mail when the server reaches one.
Showtime
The Uptimed package includes the Uprecords client, which exhibits the acquired data in a nicely formatted list on the console. To keep things readable, I restricted the uprecords -s -m3 output to the last three entries. There is a reason I choose my video disk recorder for this – it freezes from time to time, and I wanted Uptimed to help me discover some method to the madness of these crashes. Unfortunately, there wasn't one: I guess the hardware is broken, just as I suspected.
Infos
- Uptimed: http://podgorny.cz/moin/Uptimed
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you've found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
The GNU Project Celebrates Its 40th Birthday
September 27 marks the 40th anniversary of the GNU Project, and it was celebrated with a hacker meeting in Biel/Bienne, Switzerland.
-
Linux Kernel Reducing Long-Term Support
LTS support for the Linux kernel is about to undergo some serious changes that will have a considerable impact on the future.
-
Fedora 39 Beta Now Available for Testing
For fans and users of Fedora Linux, the first beta of release 39 is now available, which is a minor upgrade but does include GNOME 45.
-
Fedora Linux 40 to Drop X11 for KDE Plasma
When Fedora 40 arrives in 2024, there will be a few big changes coming, especially for the KDE Plasma option.
-
Real-Time Ubuntu Available in AWS Marketplace
Anyone looking for a Linux distribution for real-time processing could do a whole lot worse than Real-Time Ubuntu.
-
KSMBD Finally Reaches a Stable State
For those who've been looking forward to the first release of KSMBD, after two years it's no longer considered experimental.
-
Nitrux 3.0.0 Has Been Released
The latest version of Nitrux brings plenty of innovation and fresh apps to the table.
-
Linux From Scratch 12.0 Now Available
If you're looking to roll your own Linux distribution, the latest version of Linux From Scratch is now available with plenty of updates.
-
Linux Kernel 6.5 Has Been Released
The newest Linux kernel, version 6.5, now includes initial support for two very exciting features.
-
UbuntuDDE 23.04 Now Available
A new version of the UbuntuDDE remix has finally arrived with all the updates from the Deepin desktop and everything that comes with the Ubuntu 23.04 base.