Longest Uptime?

[new_guy]

I know. Longest uptime is silly, macho, pointless stuff... but I ran across
an old SunOS 2.6 box that had been up for 387 days. It had been hacked. The
only reason it was not an open mail relay is that /var was full. So, I
thought to myself, "I bet I could run an OpenBSD box for that amount of time
or longer without getting hacked and without doing much to it." Just
wondering what's the longest OpenBSD uptime some folks on misc have seen?

Thanks

[Stephane Lapie]

Post by new_guy
I know. Longest uptime is silly, macho, pointless stuff... but I ran across
an old SunOS 2.6 box that had been up for 387 days. It had been hacked. The
only reason it was not an open mail relay is that /var was full. So, I
thought to myself, "I bet I could run an OpenBSD box for that
amount of time
or longer without getting hacked and without doing much to it." Just
wondering what's the longest OpenBSD uptime some folks on misc have seen?

When I built a NAT gateway for home some five years ago (On OpenBSD
3.4), it could go on for more than 580 days without rebooting (though
it didn't act as a public mail server), after which point I had a
power outage and decided anyway to apply updates more diligently
given the hassle it is to upgrade / reinstall a box all the way to
the latest version when you let more than one version pass. :)

[Antoine Jacoutot]

Post by new_guy
I know. Longest uptime is silly, macho, pointless stuff... but I ran across

What is your point? Dogs live way longer than that. Just put one in
front of your hosting provider and you should be safe for about 15
years.

Nice things about dogs is that they don't need rebooting.

[Jason Crawford]

Post by new_guy
I know. Longest uptime is silly, macho, pointless stuff... but I ran across
an old SunOS 2.6 box that had been up for 387 days. It had been hacked. The
only reason it was not an open mail relay is that /var was full. So, I
thought to myself, "I bet I could run an OpenBSD box for that amount of time
or longer without getting hacked and without doing much to it." Just
wondering what's the longest OpenBSD uptime some folks on misc have seen?
Thanks
--
View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Longest-Uptime--tp20219082p20219082.html
Sent from the openbsd user - misc mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

Hmm, yeah sure I'll bite. The longest I've seen that I still have a
record of (screen shot of the uptime command) was a machine I
installed as a firewall for a very important mail server. Please note,
I was not in charge of maintaining it, otherwise it would not have
reached this uptime, but it was over two years. As far as I could tell
(I got onto the box once in a blue moon) it was not hacked, but seeing
as all it did was run pf, and only allowed ssh from 2 IP addresses
(both I controlled, and were firewalled themselves), that doesn't seem
extraordinary. I will type out the uptime/uname command as in the
picture:

$ uptime
10:54AM up 745 days, 22:36, 0 users, load averages: 0.13, 0.09, 0.08
$ uname -a
OpenBSD bassfishing 3.1 GENERIC#0 i386
$

As far as uptimes I don't have records of, a friend of mine has worked
on old systems that weren't rebooted because they were afraid it would
not boot back up again. One of them pre-internet, I believe it did
some financial stuff. However, no proof there.

[bofh]

Post by Jason Crawford
As far as uptimes I don't have records of

I think Art's the final word, but one of the more impressive uptimes I
heard about was this vax system in .de or some such. They kept the
uptime even across 2 cross-town moves! This was quite a few moons
ago.

[Paul M]

Hi all

I have a simple 2 disk RAID 1 array which has become corrupted by a
faulty memory module.

If I repeatedly generate an MD5 hash on the same file, I consistantly
get 1 of 2 values back, roughly alternating, so I assume that the 2
disks have different versions of the same file and they are accessed
more-or-less alternately. 'raidclt -s' tells me that all is well with
the array.
It appears that the likelyhood of corruption is greater with larger
files - >approx 1/2 gig are pretty much all corrupt while small files
are pretty much all ok. All this sounds reasonable under the
circumstances.

My idea on recovering as much as possible was to disconnect 1 drive,
copy all the data off, switch to the other drive and do the same, then
run an anaysis on the 2 copies - if a file is the same on both copys,
the it's probably ok, if they differ, then one or both will be bad.

So, I did the first copy, but when I swap to the other disk, RAIDFrame
has remembered that this has 'failed' so will not configure it into the
set (as I feared it would(nt)).

Does anyone know how I can tell RAIDFrame that the first drive is
actually ok, or is my reasoning just nonsense anyway?
What would a parity re-write do in this case?

Ironicaly this computer is in the process of being configured as backup
storage, so while I have the originals of most of the data, there is
some that I dont, and I haven't yet set up the secondary (off site)
backups. And yes I did test the backups were ok, the first ones at
least. It appears the module failed some time during the process. I
know, I should have been anal and checked every single one, but it was
all brand new hardware ...
Actually, that's when failure rates are high.


paulm

[William Boshuck]

Post by new_guy
I know. Longest uptime is silly, macho, pointless stuff... but I ran across
an old SunOS 2.6 box that had been up for 387 days. It had been hacked. The
only reason it was not an open mail relay is that /var was full. So, I
thought to myself, "I bet I could run an OpenBSD box for that amount of time
or longer without getting hacked and without doing much to it." Just
wondering what's the longest OpenBSD uptime some folks on misc have seen?

I think the final word on this was pronounced
(perhaps predictably) by Artur Grabowski.

http://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=116792821815901&w=2

See especially the link in the foregoing message:

http://www.blahonga.org/~art/diffs/epenis-enlargement.20060210

-wb

[J.C. Roberts]

Post by new_guy
I know. Longest uptime is silly, macho, pointless stuff... but I ran
across an old SunOS 2.6 box that had been up for 387 days. It had
been hacked. The only reason it was not an open mail relay is that
/var was full. So, I thought to myself, "I bet I could run an OpenBSD
box for that amount of time or longer without getting hacked and
without doing much to it." Just wondering what's the longest OpenBSD
uptime some folks on misc have seen?
Thanks

We all have embarrassing secrets regarding systems we've failed to
properly maintain, but bragging about uptime is just like bragging
about the ugliest people you've slept with.

Sure, you did it, but that doesn't make it a good idea.

(Jon glances lustfully at his ancient but seldom used laptop)

--
Jon

[Chris Lawder]

... From a file I sent the output of uptime and date to a while back...

bash-2.04$ cat 1111.days
2:08PM up 1111 days, 19:28, 2 users, load averages: 0.11, 0.12, 0.08
Fri Mar 23 14:08:50 PDT 2007

Soon after that the UPS my box was connected to at the ISP died and had
to be replaced.

It's still a stock 2.8 GENERIC#399 i386 system that has seen many
attacks but not a break in. It's not a critical system, only my toy box.
While the big uptime was fun I now believe in doing my updates/upgrades
and rebooting a little more often.

C

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-***@openbsd.org [mailto:owner-***@openbsd.org] On Behalf
Of J.C. Roberts
Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2008 7:30 PM
To: new_guy
Cc: ***@openbsd.org
Subject: Re: Longest Uptime?

Post by new_guy
I know. Longest uptime is silly, macho, pointless stuff... but I ran
across an old SunOS 2.6 box that had been up for 387 days. It had been
hacked. The only reason it was not an open mail relay is that /var was
full. So, I thought to myself, "I bet I could run an OpenBSD box for
that amount of time or longer without getting hacked and without doing
much to it." Just wondering what's the longest OpenBSD uptime some
folks on misc have seen?
Thanks

We all have embarrassing secrets regarding systems we've failed to
properly maintain, but bragging about uptime is just like bragging about
the ugliest people you've slept with.

Sure, you did it, but that doesn't make it a good idea.

(Jon glances lustfully at his ancient but seldom used laptop)

--
Jon

[Guido Tschakert]

Post by new_guy
I know. Longest uptime is silly, macho, pointless stuff... but I ran across
an old SunOS 2.6 box that had been up for 387 days. It had been hacked. The
only reason it was not an open mail relay is that /var was full. So, I
thought to myself, "I bet I could run an OpenBSD box for that amount of time
or longer without getting hacked and without doing much to it." Just
wondering what's the longest OpenBSD uptime some folks on misc have seen?
Thanks

Hmm,

what about 180-190 days uptime max?
Afaik you need to reboot your OpenBSD when you upgrade in May and
November...

guido

[Mike Swanson]

On Tue, Oct 28, 2008 at 11:45 PM, Guido Tschakert

Post by Guido Tschakert
Hmm,
what about 180-190 days uptime max?
Afaik you need to reboot your OpenBSD when you upgrade in May and
November...
guido

Just hope an important kernel update doesn't come by within those six
months. ;)

[Artur Grabowski]

Post by new_guy
I know. Longest uptime is silly, macho, pointless stuff... but I ran across
an old SunOS 2.6 box that had been up for 387 days. It had been hacked. The
only reason it was not an open mail relay is that /var was full. So, I
thought to myself, "I bet I could run an OpenBSD box for that amount of time
or longer without getting hacked and without doing much to it." Just
wondering what's the longest OpenBSD uptime some folks on misc have seen?

7:52AM up 6134 days, 16:36, 3 users, load averages: 0.52, 0.47, 0.43

http://www.blahonga.org/~art/diffs/epenis-enlargement.20060210

//art

[Gilles Chehade]

Post by new_guy
I know. Longest uptime is silly, macho, pointless stuff... but I ran across
an old SunOS 2.6 box that had been up for 387 days. It had been hacked. The
only reason it was not an open mail relay is that /var was full. So, I
thought to myself, "I bet I could run an OpenBSD box for that amount of time
or longer without getting hacked and without doing much to it." Just
wondering what's the longest OpenBSD uptime some folks on misc have seen?
Thanks

It is not the size of your uptime that matters, it is what you do with it.

Gilles

[guilherme m. schroeder]

Hi,

Uptimes sucks. Here's the biggest i've ever seen in the company i work:

[***@optg998 ~]$ uname -a
SunOS optg998 5.6 Generic_105181-26 sun4u sparc SUNW,UltraSPARC-IIi-cEngine
[***@optg998 ~]$ uptime
3:40pm up 2639 day(s), 13:50, 1 user, load average: 0.08, 0.07, 0.06
[***@optg998 ~]$ date
Wed Oct 29 15:45:24 BRST 2008
[***@optg998 ~]$ psrinfo -v
Status of processor 0 as of: 10/29/08 15:41:07
Processor has been on-line since 08/08/01 00:50:54.
The sparc processor operates at 440 MHz,
and has a sparc floating point processor.
[***@optg998 ~]$ dmesg | tail -5
SUNW,hme0: Using External Transceiver
SUNW,hme0: 100 Mbps half-duplex Link Up
dump on /dev/md/dsk/d50 size 2042608K
SUNW,hme0: Using External Transceiver
SUNW,hme0: full-duplex Link Up

Ok it's not OpenBSD, blame on me. But what i liked is that this
machine is working for 2639 days and it stills blink green leds. The
harddisk never gave up too. No errors on dmesg.
It's a Netra T1 machine, running our internal DNS server. I think
we'll replace it when it dies ;)

Post by Gilles Chehade

Post by new_guy
I know. Longest uptime is silly, macho, pointless stuff... but I ran across
an old SunOS 2.6 box that had been up for 387 days. It had been hacked. The
only reason it was not an open mail relay is that /var was full. So, I
thought to myself, "I bet I could run an OpenBSD box for that amount of time
or longer without getting hacked and without doing much to it." Just
wondering what's the longest OpenBSD uptime some folks on misc have seen?
Thanks

It is not the size of your uptime that matters, it is what you do with it.
Gilles

[bofh]

On Wed, Oct 29, 2008 at 1:49 PM, guilherme m. schroeder

Post by guilherme m. schroeder
Ok it's not OpenBSD, blame on me. But what i liked is that this
machine is working for 2639 days and it stills blink green leds. The

We bought 2 machines (together). Expensive ones. After putting them
in, my peon walks around looking at them. One had a green blinking
power led. All is well. The other had a red blinking power led.
Peon went nuts looking in the documentation, etc etc. Diagnostics and
everything seems to indicate the system is working. Called support
up. After a while, they finally figured out what was the problem.
The vendor neglected to spec the color of the power led, and had
sourced it from 2 different factories. So, one factory put in a green
led, and the other put in a red one.

I have since made it my life's mission to tell every single one of
their reps that in a data center, you only want to see green blinking
lights, not red blinking lights.

[Pete Vickers]

Okai,

here's my $0.02 on the subject:

Loading Image...


/Pete

Post by guilherme m. schroeder
Hi,
SunOS optg998 5.6 Generic_105181-26 sun4u sparc SUNW,UltraSPARC-IIi-
cEngine
3:40pm up 2639 day(s), 13:50, 1 user, load average: 0.08, 0.07, 0.06
Wed Oct 29 15:45:24 BRST 2008
Status of processor 0 as of: 10/29/08 15:41:07
Processor has been on-line since 08/08/01 00:50:54.
The sparc processor operates at 440 MHz,
and has a sparc floating point processor.
SUNW,hme0: Using External Transceiver
SUNW,hme0: 100 Mbps half-duplex Link Up
dump on /dev/md/dsk/d50 size 2042608K
SUNW,hme0: Using External Transceiver
SUNW,hme0: full-duplex Link Up
Ok it's not OpenBSD, blame on me. But what i liked is that this
machine is working for 2639 days and it stills blink green leds. The
harddisk never gave up too. No errors on dmesg.
It's a Netra T1 machine, running our internal DNS server. I think
we'll replace it when it dies ;)

Post by Gilles Chehade

Post by new_guy
I know. Longest uptime is silly, macho, pointless stuff... but I ran across
an old SunOS 2.6 box that had been up for 387 days. It had been
hacked.
The
only reason it was not an open mail relay is that /var was full. So, I
thought to myself, "I bet I could run an OpenBSD box for that
amount of
time
or longer without getting hacked and without doing much to it." Just
wondering what's the longest OpenBSD uptime some folks on misc have seen?
Thanks

It is not the size of your uptime that matters, it is what you do with it.
Gilles

[Marco Peereboom]

Now *that* is nuts!

Not upgrading IOS every other day that is...

Post by Pete Vickers
Okai,
http://systemnet.no/ios-uptime.jpg
/Pete

Post by guilherme m. schroeder
Hi,
SunOS optg998 5.6 Generic_105181-26 sun4u sparc SUNW,UltraSPARC-IIi-
cEngine
3:40pm up 2639 day(s), 13:50, 1 user, load average: 0.08, 0.07, 0.06
Wed Oct 29 15:45:24 BRST 2008
Status of processor 0 as of: 10/29/08 15:41:07
Processor has been on-line since 08/08/01 00:50:54.
The sparc processor operates at 440 MHz,
and has a sparc floating point processor.
SUNW,hme0: Using External Transceiver
SUNW,hme0: 100 Mbps half-duplex Link Up
dump on /dev/md/dsk/d50 size 2042608K
SUNW,hme0: Using External Transceiver
SUNW,hme0: full-duplex Link Up
Ok it's not OpenBSD, blame on me. But what i liked is that this
machine is working for 2639 days and it stills blink green leds. The
harddisk never gave up too. No errors on dmesg.
It's a Netra T1 machine, running our internal DNS server. I think
we'll replace it when it dies ;)

Post by Gilles Chehade

Post by new_guy
I know. Longest uptime is silly, macho, pointless stuff... but I ran across
an old SunOS 2.6 box that had been up for 387 days. It had been
hacked.
The
only reason it was not an open mail relay is that /var was full. So, I
thought to myself, "I bet I could run an OpenBSD box for that
amount of
time
or longer without getting hacked and without doing much to it." Just
wondering what's the longest OpenBSD uptime some folks on misc have seen?
Thanks

It is not the size of your uptime that matters, it is what you do with it.
Gilles

[Laurent CARON]

Post by Marco Peereboom
Now *that* is nuts!
Not upgrading IOS every other day that is...

What about having the greatest downtime ?

Means running windows ?

Nope, sorry, just not having the computer plugged ...

Ain't that great ? ;)

[Andres Genovez]

Post by Gilles Chehade

Post by new_guy
I know. Longest uptime is silly, macho, pointless stuff... but I ran across
an old SunOS 2.6 box that had been up for 387 days. It had been hacked. The
only reason it was not an open mail relay is that /var was full. So, I
thought to myself, "I bet I could run an OpenBSD box for that amount of time
or longer without getting hacked and without doing much to it." Just
wondering what's the longest OpenBSD uptime some folks on misc have seen?
Thanks
It is not the size of your uptime that matters, it is what you do with

it.

Nice One :)

Post by Gilles Chehade
Gilles

http://www.crice.org

[Gilles Chehade]

Post by Andres Genovez

Post by Gilles Chehade
It is not the size of your uptime that matters, it is what you do with

it.

Nice One :)

Well, I can see a pattern...

Every year or so, someone runs into a Linux box that has not been
rebooted or patched in a LONG time, usually because someone else higher
in company's hierarchy doesn't want it rebooted.
Then, amazed by the fact that an idle box does not crash when left doing
nothing but idle, he just HAS to come over and brag about the uptime of
that mostly idle box because it is three or more digits long.

The truth is, most people here don't care about uptime, let alone the
uptime of Linux boxes, and in OpenBSD land you better have a GOOD reason
to have an uptime longer than two releases.
Obviously, being amazed by the uptime of an idle box is not really a
good reason ;-)

Gilles,
proud to never exceed 200 days of uptime

[Han Boetes]

[snip]
...and in OpenBSD land you better have a GOOD reason to have an
uptime longer than two releases.
[snip]
Gilles,
proud to never exceed 200 days of uptime

Speaking of which... I think I have a pretty good reason to bring
down my uptime very shortly. YAY!

~% uptime
10:39AM up 82 days, 14:06, 1 user, load averages: 0.22, 0.20, 0.17



# Han

[Alexey Suslikov]

Post by Han Boetes

[snip]
...and in OpenBSD land you better have a GOOD reason to have an
uptime longer than two releases.
[snip]
Gilles,
proud to never exceed 200 days of uptime

Speaking of which... I think I have a pretty good reason to bring
down my uptime very shortly. YAY!
~% uptime
10:39AM up 82 days, 14:06, 1 user, load averages: 0.22, 0.20, 0.17

IMO, indvidual machines' uptime doesn't matter at all.

Overall system uptime does matter (this is why we have
carp, pfsync and relayd).

Think Google. They have their cheap machines dying
(or rebooting after patching) all the time, but overall
system stability is very high.

Alexey

[Lori Barfield]

Post by new_guy
I know. Longest uptime is silly, macho, pointless stuff... but I ran across
an old SunOS 2.6 box that had been up for 387 days. It had been hacked. The
only reason it was not an open mail relay is that /var was full. So, I
thought to myself, "I bet I could run an OpenBSD box for that amount of time
or longer without getting hacked and without doing much to it." Just
wondering what's the longest OpenBSD uptime some folks on misc have seen?

SunOS 2.6 was released in 1999. if someone can really run a 9-yr-old
release of *anything* exposed to the internet without "doing much to it,"
and still avoid compromise, that would be a pretty good trick.

...lori

[new_guy]

Post by Lori Barfield
SunOS 2.6 was released in 1999. if someone can really run a 9-yr-old
release of *anything* exposed to the internet without "doing much to it,"
and still avoid compromise, that would be a pretty good trick.
...lori

Yes, I agree. But I have seen systems that old online in the year 2008. The
latest one was running on 15 year old Sun hardware. SunOS 2.6. It had been
hacked. I found it because it was infected with stacheldracht... remember
that? One of the first DDOS tools. And it was phoning home to a handler
(they did not refer to them as 'controllers' back in 1999). You'd be
surprised... especially in higher-ed IT environments. Research professors
with Nobel Peace prizes in science have dusty, old research labs full of
systems like this... and yes, they are online :)