[NTLUG:Discuss] I lost 500 days of uptime without a reboot!??!

[Kelledin]

This is a common occurrence on 32-bit Linux systems.  The uptime counter
will reset after 497 days.  It's a consequence of being limited to 32-bit
jiffies (jiffies==internal kernel timer ticks).

IIRC Linux 2.6 is supposed to support 64-bit jiffies, so the sun will
probably burn out before its uptime counter resets.  It is doable, but it
takes a little extra work; jiffies are expected to be an atomic value. 
Making a 64-bit value atomic on a 32-bit processor involves some dancing
with mutexes.

Richard Geoffrion said:
> Where did 500 days of uptime go if the server didn't reboot?  Is there a
> reset command on the uptime counter?

-- 
Kelledin
"If a server crashes in a server farm and no one pings it, does it still
cost four figures to fix?"