Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/

["David R. Matusiak" <matusiak AT speakeasy.net>]

well, honestly Kate there are no simple answers to any unix question, 
regardless 
of direness, vendor, colour or creed. sometimes you just have to stop and ask 
yourself "Self, do I really /want/ to reboot this machine?"

for, sometimes you have to reflect on all the good uptime and files lost and 
found. the laughs and the smiles; and especially the times you cried 
together. 
hopefully you and your machine will not focus on the bad times, but instead 
on 
all those moments when you *knew* it was just right. the salad days.

so, suddenly this urge arises in you to reboot. why the shift in attitude? 
have 
you considered how your machine might feel about this? all those hours, 
tirelessly grinding away to satisfy your every computing need. and now the 
boot?

c'mon - you can work this out. i know, "things change." well, thru most 
upgrades 
you can simply restart a process (with the occasional SIGHUP). no need for 
anything drastic! i really wish the best for you guys. you're good people and 
i'm pulling for you. please let us know how things go.
dave ;)
___  _ _____ . ....
m a h t o o z e e a c k  a t  s p e e k e e z e e  d o t  n e t
------ / / .........     . . .

On Mon, 1 Jul 2002, Michael D. Thomas wrote:

> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Steven Champeon" <schampeo AT hesketh.com>
> To: "InterNetWorkers" <internetworkers AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
> Sent: Monday, July 01, 2002 7:25 PM
> Subject: [internetworkers] Re: quick unix question
> 
> 
> > on Mon, Jul 01, 2002 at 06:35:27PM -0400, Kate Johnson wrote:
> > >
> > > I need to reboot a server.  What is the syntax to send a message to user
> > > screens telling them to logoff now?
> >
> > If you do 'shutdown -h now' it will do a wall(1) saying something to
> > that effect, anyway. But you can do a wall(1), a la:
> 
> [on linux. should be good for others.]
> 
> 1) A message of your choosing can be passed to the shutdown command.
> 2) You'll want to use -r for rebooting.
> 
> This gives your users 5 minutes and the message "Hardware upgrade".
> 
> #/sbin/shutdown -r +5 Hardware upgrade
> 
> Of course, consult your local man page:
> 
> #man shutdown
> 
> I always end up reading it about 3 times because it seems all of my UNIX
> reboots are of remote machines in other states/countries in the middle of 
> the
> night.