Do you need to reboot a router every so often?

Forums › New Zealand Broadband › Do you need to reboot a router every so often?

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Snackos

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#2137220 30-Nov-2018 13:18

I once had a Windows XP box at work that had been on for over 4 years. Still ran quite well. It ran the trojans especially well.

Behodar

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#2137231 30-Nov-2018 13:32

I last rebooted mine in May 2017, when troubleshooting an outage (and it turned out that the router wasn't the problem).

snnet

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#2137390 30-Nov-2018 17:09

If it's an ISP supplied modem and you find you're having problems theyre usually fixed with a reboot. I get issues quite often with customers' wired connections to their ISP supplied routers (like hardwiring TVs, AV receivers, Fibaro HC's) for some reason won't assign an IP off DHCP but also won't allow traffic when a static is assigned on the equipment. Reboot seems to fix it every time (not limited to one install)

hsvhel

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#2137393 30-Nov-2018 17:19

i don't really bother, unless i need to it sits in the corner and quietly serves the house

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andrewNZ

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#2137512 30-Nov-2018 20:38

The power providers reboot mine a few times a year minimum, otherwise I don't bother at all.
I did have mine on a UPS so it was up for about a year without a reboot.

Off topic, don't buy cheap UPS's like Dynamix. They'll burn your house down.

ANglEAUT

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#2137603 1-Dec-2018 02:21

Aredwood: ... Ironically it then failed to reboot after I switched the power back on ...

For this reason, some people try to avoid restarting equipment. ... It will keep on operating - as long as you don't restart it or turn off the power.

You should reboot your router at regular intervals. It's good disaster recovery preparation

Have a planned outage rather than an unplanned outage
Why risk the outage being extended because of failing hardware?
Know what a healthy reboot looks like
1. How long does a normal reboot take? Is a 5min reboot time normal or are you just hoping the equipment is still busy with the process?
2. What do the log files look like for a normal reboot? Know what a healthy state looks like so you can easily spot an unhealthy state
Let others know that this piece of equipment also needs maintenance so that they don't have an unreasonable expectation of being online 24/7/52

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Batman

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#2137610 1-Dec-2018 07:55

my windows 10 pro 64 computers get gremlins after a week and glitches. i reboot when i'm sick of the black magic spell.

my iphone running ios 10 - about 2-3 weeks and you notice the gremlins. (mod use)

ipads - never have issues. (cause nobody uses it, never open any apps!)

isp supplied routers - you reboot when you have no internet (about a month iirc, ymmv)

my asus rt ac3200 - lost internet twice in 3 years.

the connections? how well the OS is coded + how many programs you run. the more programs the more you will get a poorly coded one that crashes and causes gremlins. my asus router i turn off all the smart features.

reboot when you notice something wrong.

tdgeek

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#2137616 1-Dec-2018 08:11

Batman:

isp supplied routers - you reboot when you have no internet (about a month iirc, ymmv)

reboot when you notice something wrong.

Oddly, my 659b that is connected to the ONT failed to give internet yesterday. Rebooted, all fine. The last time was probably one year ago, and probably a year before that.

Batman

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#2137617 1-Dec-2018 08:13

tdgeek:

Batman:

isp supplied routers - you reboot when you have no internet (about a month iirc, ymmv)

reboot when you notice something wrong.

Oddly, my 659b that is connected to the ONT failed to give internet yesterday. Rebooted, all fine. The last time was probably one year ago, and probably a year before that.

i think that router is pretty good. the 639(?) however ...

Batman

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#2137618 1-Dec-2018 08:15

there was one router (can't remember which one, i think huawei hx63x) that would reject my wife's iphone at random lol. reboot when wife says no internet.

pctek

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#2139253 4-Dec-2018 14:07

If and only if there is an issue, rebooting can fix it.

If it happens a lot, time to replace it.

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Aredwood

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#2139478 4-Dec-2018 23:52

IcI:

Aredwood: ... Ironically it then failed to reboot after I switched the power back on ...

For this reason, some people try to avoid restarting equipment. ... It will keep on operating - as long as you don't restart it or turn off the power.

You should reboot your router at regular intervals. It's good disaster recovery preparation

Have a planned outage rather than an unplanned outage
Why risk the outage being extended because of failing hardware?
Know what a healthy reboot looks like

How long does a normal reboot take? Is a 5min reboot time normal or are you just hoping the equipment is still busy with the process?
What do the log files look like for a normal reboot? Know what a healthy state looks like so you can easily spot an unhealthy state

Let others know that this piece of equipment also needs maintenance so that they don't have an unreasonable expectation of being online 24/7/52

Most of the time, I only need to reboot the Edgerouter as part of firmware upgrades. But that would mean that the log files would almost certainly be different on the 1st boot on new firmware compared to subsequent reboots. So a few restarts would be needed to see if the log files are changing or not. And after that, next reboot might not be until the next firmware update. Current uptime is 9 months and 3 weeks. Ram usage is 36%. The previous mentioned failure was part of planned work. And the spare router was already on hand then. So the planned outage wasn't much longer than initially expected.

I do have a spare router on hand (Fritzbox 7490). In case I have another complete failure, or if 2degrees ask me to plug in the supplied router for diagnostics. Also it is only handling routing duties for my house. (As opposed to a mission critical business requirements). So my current setup is already overkill in relation to what it is used for. Especially as the 12V UPS also has a 270W solar panel connected to it. So I have potentially the ability to get through even days long power cuts while still having 100% uptime. (Although such running would really stress the batteries). A battery charger on a timer supplements the solar panel overnight.

You would be able to find my house during a major disaster. Just by going wardriving, looking for Wifi networks.

As for WinXP. I used to keep my XP machine running 24/7. While it would only get restarted if Microsoft pushed out a security update that required a restart to install. So sometimes 2 months uptime until a forced restart due to updates. And it would still be nice and responsive, even when the uptime was well over 1 month.

I would run as a limited privileges user for day to day usage, and only login as an admin user when absolutely necessary.

Biggest issue with WinXP, was that it has a "hidden" administrator account. Which only gets exposed on the login screen if you boot in safe mode. And on most systems, that admin account never had a password. So malware or a malicious local user could very easily get root access by using that account. Just having a password on that account closes off most privilege escalation attacks. Combine with installing security patches as soon as they were released, and running as a limited user by default. And WinXP was actually quite secure.

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