[Techtalk] Kernel upgrades (was: Re: LIDS and CAPSET woes)

[Raven Alder]

Heya --

Quoth Kai MacTane (Tue, Jan 07, 2003 at 09:58:09PM -0800):
> >You'd think I was asking to schedule world war 3 when i ask to
> >reboot a server for a kernel upgrade....
> 
> They can't handle five minutes of scheduled downtime? Damn, and I thought 
> some of *my* users were cranky and demanding!

	Five minutes if all goes well.  Sometimes it doesn't.  (It's
been Linux kernel day for me, what can I say?)  I have another system
I've been working on besides the LIDS box, setting up a CheckPoint 4.1
FireWall-1 and VPN box for our QA department to test our log-pulling
software on.  Between the requirements of the CheckPoint 4.1 firewall
kernel modules (they don't give you source for them, and they're
apparantly precompiled only for kernel 2.2.12-20 -- but they don't tell
you this up front) and the requirements of our log-pulling software
(glibc 2.2 and a few other things), I've been through many reboots in an
effort to get the kernel happy and working.  So if I'd scheduled five
minutes of downtime, my users would be justifiably cranky at that box
bouncing all day.

	I'm kind of fond of the rule-by-fiat method of system downtime.
"The system will be down for four hours between 0400 and 0800 Tuesday
morning."  Then if you do only have five minutes of downtime, everyone
thinks you're a genius, and if you run into trouble, you've got the time
you need to fix it.  It's the Scotty principle.  [grin]

Cheers,
Raven

"Mug the Traveller."
  -- advice from the box of an Irish tea cup