I thought it was a cardinal sin to force a server to reboot...?
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jschell wrote:
Standard large distributed system architecture design would be to expect servers to reboot, fail, and even just disappear (taken down and not restored.)
We are not talking about a unforeseen failure that crashes a server. We are talking about an outside third party intentionally rebooting a server at its whim, completely ignoring the needs of the owner of that server. For former is an "act of god". The latter is an "act of Microsoft".
jschell wrote:
Perhaps not applicable to you but at least AWS will force updates for certain cases. They give notice but if the user has not updated the system by the specified date they will just do it.
Emphasis mine. This is a totally different scenario, as the owner of the servers (AWS) gives notice to the tenants that maintenance is required, and acts when a deadline has been reached. Similarly, all computers and major systems at my employer undergo periodic maintenance. The respective owners give users (tenants) sufficient warning ahead of time, and any who fail to heed the warning, get what they get.
BryanFazekas wrote:
We are talking about an outside third party intentionally rebooting a server at its whim
The OP did not state that.
BryanFazekas wrote:
(AWS) gives notice to the tenants that maintenance is required, and acts when a deadline has been reached.
And yet in my experience people are still surprised when it happens. The notice was given but they did not see it so they do not understand why it happened.
BryanFazekas wrote:
Similarly, all computers and major systems at my employer undergo periodic maintenance.
In my experience I have had to debug production server problems because someone did an update without telling anyone. Sometimes without even documenting it. Even when documented often without documenting what the exact update did. And then when I am tasked with determining the problem, no one on the call is even aware that an update happened.
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But as the OP asked, is it appropriate to just reboot servers "because"? And the answer is no. Never. And it got so bad with these idiots they had to put enterprise hooks in to turn this off. One writes software to be stable. Microsoft has deliberately engineered a sporadic reboot that none of my customers would ever tolerate. It's criminal. Let me give you one simple example. I need to be able to run soak tests for weeks/months at a time. I have multiple UPS', I am very careful with my hardware, etc. I've developed under openVMS, Solaris, HPUX, IBM AIX, Linux and Microsoft. The only company and OS that forces reboots is Microsoft. So, I'm not sure what the point of your comment is. The OP asked a simple question, and the answer is no. No OS should ever just reboot itself. So, I picked bologna to avoid profanity. You really don't want me speaking what I'm really thinking.
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
charlieg wrote:
No OS should ever just reboot itself
I can remember my surprise when running on a Solaris system when it would do a cold boot when I attempted to run Netscape. Every single time. Pretty sure the OS and/or the hardware was in fact in charge of doing the cold boot. Myself I design for failure. Boxes will go down. Doesn't matter why.
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You mean Windows servers have UPtime???? I usually reboot them every couple of days to make sure they are actually able to boot again
hevisko wrote:
I usually reboot them every couple of days to make sure they are actually able to boot again
Standard large system support. If one plans on doing dynamic sizing one needs to provide for boxes going up and going down due to load. Netflix has a running application that takes deliberately takes servers down to test for system reliability. And you can use it to if you want. Home - Chaos Monkey[^]
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...hence why I used Server 2022 when I built my latest dev VM. I got tired of finding out my previous Windows 10 dev VM had rebooted right after Patch Tuesday. But no, my dev machine rebooted last night at 00:45am. Lost an awful lot of context. Meanwhile, the VM *host*, running Server 2012 R2, back when it was still supported and getting updates, would patiently wait for months if I just let it. Surely server admins aren't putting up with this. Surely MS hasn't changed the default behavior so a server OS can now reboot if it just feels like it.
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Mark Starr wrote:
If that works, can you please post a followup comment about it?
Will do. The process I used is: 1. Launch the Run command (Win + R). Type in "gpedit.msc" and hit Enter to open the group policy editor. 2. Drill down through Computer Configuration | Administrative Templates | Windows Components | Windows Update 3. In the right pane, select Configure Automatic Updates [I had to sort by name, as there are many options in no obvious sort order] 4. Click Disabled to select it, then click Apply and then OK The descriptions in the Configure Automatic Updates dialog talk about Windows XP, so this is old. I did this on my laptop, but not my desktop. I'm going to watch on a daily basis to see what happens. Note 1: When I go into Windows Update in red it reads "*Some settings are managed by your organization" Below the Check for Updates button it reads "*Your organization has turned off automatic updates" I have hopes it will work, but fear it just can't be this easy. We are dealing with MS, after all. Note 2: If Enabled is clicked, options can be set to "3 - Auto download and notify for install". If the above works, I may try this, as I have no problem with updates being downloaded. My objection is automatic updates and especially being forced to reboot.
>. 2. Drill down through Computer Configuration | Administrative Templates | Windows Components | Windows Update >. 3. In the right pane, select Configure Automatic Updates [I had to sort by name, as there are many options in no obvious sort order] That’s the piece I needed. You’re right: there are so many flags and switches now it’s mind numbing to go through them. Thanks!
Time is the differentiation of eternity devised by man to measure the passage of human events. - Manly P. Hall Mark Just another cog in the wheel
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dandy72 wrote:
Surely server admins aren't putting up with this
You can take your computers entirely offline. Then certainly Microsoft cannot be the problem.
That's not the problem at all. I want the updates. As a matter of fact, I use WSUS, which allows me to approve/reject individual updates. I installed the updates. Now I want the system to wait for me to tell it when to reboot, even if I were to choose to wait a month before clicking on the OK button on that prompt. Just like the aforementioned 2012 R2 did. Windows Server used to work that way. It no longer does. That is what I'm complaining about.
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BryanFazekas wrote:
We are talking about an outside third party intentionally rebooting a server at its whim
The OP did not state that.
BryanFazekas wrote:
(AWS) gives notice to the tenants that maintenance is required, and acts when a deadline has been reached.
And yet in my experience people are still surprised when it happens. The notice was given but they did not see it so they do not understand why it happened.
BryanFazekas wrote:
Similarly, all computers and major systems at my employer undergo periodic maintenance.
In my experience I have had to debug production server problems because someone did an update without telling anyone. Sometimes without even documenting it. Even when documented often without documenting what the exact update did. And then when I am tasked with determining the problem, no one on the call is even aware that an update happened.
jschell wrote:
The OP did not state that.
It was not stated clearly, but who else can reboot his server after Patch Tuesday other than Microsoft? The fact that with Win10 Microsoft DOES force reboots following an update, plus the context of the post indicate it's MS.
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That's not the problem at all. I want the updates. As a matter of fact, I use WSUS, which allows me to approve/reject individual updates. I installed the updates. Now I want the system to wait for me to tell it when to reboot, even if I were to choose to wait a month before clicking on the OK button on that prompt. Just like the aforementioned 2012 R2 did. Windows Server used to work that way. It no longer does. That is what I'm complaining about.
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charlieg wrote:
No OS should ever just reboot itself
I can remember my surprise when running on a Solaris system when it would do a cold boot when I attempted to run Netscape. Every single time. Pretty sure the OS and/or the hardware was in fact in charge of doing the cold boot. Myself I design for failure. Boxes will go down. Doesn't matter why.
that's a bug and I think you are going way, way back :). It's annoying but completely different from a corporate policy that says FU.
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
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Sounds like a pair of scissors may be the best alternative for you. The only problem is that then we won't have the opportunity to hear what came out of it.
Fair comment. But some soak tests are doing network stuff. So, I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't. I'd be content with MS pestering me. I'm not sure how MS decides the computer is not in use. Keyboard activity? Mouse? It just makes no rational sense.
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
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You mean Windows servers have UPtime???? I usually reboot them every couple of days to make sure they are actually able to boot again
They actually do. I have a Windows server that hosts an emulation system. It can easily stay up for a year or more. BUT. if you choose to reboot, your decision. If I come into your cube and reboot your machine, I think we're going to have fisty cuffs :)
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
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Dunno. My Win 10 desktop system keeps chugging along waiting patiently for me to apply updates when I'm good and ready.
Mine does as well. It does download the updates, but the system continues to run the loaded OS version till I tell it to update. From a dev perspective, that doesn't always play well if you use Visual Studio, but I've trained myself to check the update badge prior to doing anything with VS.
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That's not the problem at all. I want the updates. As a matter of fact, I use WSUS, which allows me to approve/reject individual updates. I installed the updates. Now I want the system to wait for me to tell it when to reboot, even if I were to choose to wait a month before clicking on the OK button on that prompt. Just like the aforementioned 2012 R2 did. Windows Server used to work that way. It no longer does. That is what I'm complaining about.
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that's a bug and I think you are going way, way back :). It's annoying but completely different from a corporate policy that says FU.
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
charlieg wrote:
but completely different from a corporate policy that says FU.
Not at all. Microsoft sells to consumers. It is nice and all that there is also a large scale professional server usage but that is not the primary market. And as it has been proven with all OSes, not just Microsoft, people ignore updates. So now Microsoft is just forcing it. Just to enforce that - linux has had multiple security bugs with patches already provided but which professionals failed to install until criminals started using them. Some of them were known for years. Perhaps those same people that think the server should be up for years. (I have worked for multiple companies where managing even certs is a problem. They know the cert will expire on a certain date yet every time there is a mad scramble the morning after it expires to figure out what is going on.)
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jschell wrote:
The OP did not state that.
It was not stated clearly, but who else can reboot his server after Patch Tuesday other than Microsoft? The fact that with Win10 Microsoft DOES force reboots following an update, plus the context of the post indicate it's MS.
BryanFazekas wrote:
who else can reboot his server after Patch Tuesday other than Microsoft
There are multiple reasons a server can reboot. I provided a list in another reply. And any of those others would result in the same problem, because the person is expecting the server to never do that.
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dandy72 wrote:
I want the updates
That doesn't change what I said though. Take it offline. Then the process is every two weeks or once a month, you take specific time to look for updates and do the update.
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Mark Starr wrote:
If that works, can you please post a followup comment about it?
Will do. The process I used is: 1. Launch the Run command (Win + R). Type in "gpedit.msc" and hit Enter to open the group policy editor. 2. Drill down through Computer Configuration | Administrative Templates | Windows Components | Windows Update 3. In the right pane, select Configure Automatic Updates [I had to sort by name, as there are many options in no obvious sort order] 4. Click Disabled to select it, then click Apply and then OK The descriptions in the Configure Automatic Updates dialog talk about Windows XP, so this is old. I did this on my laptop, but not my desktop. I'm going to watch on a daily basis to see what happens. Note 1: When I go into Windows Update in red it reads "*Some settings are managed by your organization" Below the Check for Updates button it reads "*Your organization has turned off automatic updates" I have hopes it will work, but fear it just can't be this easy. We are dealing with MS, after all. Note 2: If Enabled is clicked, options can be set to "3 - Auto download and notify for install". If the above works, I may try this, as I have no problem with updates being downloaded. My objection is automatic updates and especially being forced to reboot.
Yes, my update dialog also said something about the organization and updates. Win 10. I left mine as auto-download but not to update.
Time is the differentiation of eternity devised by man to measure the passage of human events. - Manly P. Hall Mark Just another cog in the wheel
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charlieg wrote:
but completely different from a corporate policy that says FU.
Not at all. Microsoft sells to consumers. It is nice and all that there is also a large scale professional server usage but that is not the primary market. And as it has been proven with all OSes, not just Microsoft, people ignore updates. So now Microsoft is just forcing it. Just to enforce that - linux has had multiple security bugs with patches already provided but which professionals failed to install until criminals started using them. Some of them were known for years. Perhaps those same people that think the server should be up for years. (I have worked for multiple companies where managing even certs is a problem. They know the cert will expire on a certain date yet every time there is a mad scramble the morning after it expires to figure out what is going on.)
If I'm running a professional version of a product, why do I think I should be treated like a professional? The op did admit he's running server OS, but again, why do I need to write a utility to fool microsoft into thinking a computer is in use? "people ignore updates" Because Microsoft does two things: they write more security bugs then they should and they push out useless updates. Rebooting my machine, and all my VMs, because they insist I need a new feature is utter nonsense.
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
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Ah, the advantages of living in an area where the infrastructure (like power and broadband) are... unreliable. At work the IT gestapo reboot your machine at will, fortunately after working hours. If you are on the company network it will happen. The power can be iffy as well. We have a massive generator for backup power, but it only runs our de-ionized water system. The offices can suck it. Home is slightly different. Both power and Internet can be unreliable, mainly due to the weather. My town has major outages at least once a year, and minor ones a couple of times. When I'm not actively using my machines, I've exited all apps except for my mail client (Outlook at work, Thunderbird at home). The boxes can reboot to their hearts content. I've always done this, because it's just safer. I don't see the value in having your development machine sitting there with a bunch of things running, breakpoints set, processes waiting. You're going to leave it like that at the end of the day and expect to remember all that context when you start again in the morning, or after a weekend? You're smarter folks than I am if you make that work. It's funny to me when people bitch about stuff like this when the solution is so utterly simple.
Software Zen:
delete this;Well my example was related to soak tests where we're collecting data and monitoring app performance. As for the debugger and what not - yes, picking up in the morning happens all the time where I work.
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.