BOS_SETRESTART(8)

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version 1.8.16.1 · 11 versions
, in ubuntu stonking

💖 BOS_SETRESTART 💖

okay bestie, welcome to the AFS Command Reference — this is the bos_setrestart page and it's literally about telling your BOS Server when to restart stuff. 🕐✨

🌸 NAME 🌸

bos_setrestart — sets when the BOS Server restarts processes 🫶

🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

bos setrestart -server <machine name>
    -time <time to restart server> [-general] [-newbinary]
    [-cell <cell name>] [-noauth] [-localauth] [-help]

bos setr -s <machine name> -t <time to restart server>
    [-g] [-ne] [-c <cell name>] [-no] [-l] [-h]

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

So the tea is: bos setrestart writes into the /etc/openafs/BosConfig file the exact times when the BOS Server running on the machine you named with the -server argument is gonna do its restarts. And there are two kinds of restarts it handles. 👑

  • A general restart. At this time each week, the BOS Server restarts itself, and then every AFS process in the BosConfig file that's marked with the "Run" status flag. (Effect-wise it's the same as running the bos restart command with the -bosserver flag. Same energy, different command.) And fun fact: in a brand-new bos install, general restarts are disabled by default. 🙈
  • A binary restart. By default, once per day, the BOS Server restarts any process that's currently running where the timestamp on the binary file in the /usr/lib/openafs directory is later than the time that process last started or restarted. The default for this one is 5:00 a.m. every single day. ⭐

⚠️ CAUTIONS ⚠️

okay this is the part where we get serious for a sec, no cap. 🔥

Restarting a process makes it unavailable for a period of time. And the fs process? It can have potentially the longest outage of all, depending on how many volumes the file server machine houses — because the File Server and Volume Server have to reattach every single volume when they restart. 😭 The default settings are designed to line up with periods of low usage, so the restarts disturb the smallest possible number of users. It's giving considerate. 🫶

🚨 If the time you set with -time is within one hour of the current time, the BOS Server does not restart any processes until the next applicable opportunity — that's the next day for binary restarts, or the next week for general restarts. So don't be surprised when nothing happens, bestie.

Also important: the command changes only one type of restart setting at a time. So if you wanna change both, you gotta issue the command twice. two commands, two vibes, periodt. 💅

✨ OPTIONS ✨

  • -server <machine name> — Says which server machine you're setting a new restart time on. Identify the machine by IP address or by its host name (either fully-qualified or abbreviated unambiguously). For the deets, see bos(8). 🖥️
  • -time <time to restart server> — Specifies the restart time. By convention the general restart is defined as weekly (so it specifies both a day and a time), and the binary restart is defined as daily (so it only specifies a time). But lowkey, it's totally acceptable to define a daily general restart or a weekly binary restart. You do you. ✨

There are four acceptable values for either type of restart setting:

  • The string "never" — tells the BOS Server to never, ever perform the indicated type of restart. never ever. 💀
  • The string "now" — tells the BOS Server to do the restart immediately and then never again. one and done, iconic.
  • A time of day (the conventional value for the binary restart time). Separate the hours and minutes with a colon (hh:MM), and use either 24-hour format, or a value in the range from "1:00" through "12:59" with am or pm tacked on. For example, both "14:30" and "2:30 pm" mean 2:30 in the afternoon. 🕝 Surround this parameter with double quotes ("") if it contains a space.
  • A day of the week and a time of day, separated by a space and surrounded with double quotes (""). This is the conventional value for the general restart. For the day, give either the whole name or the first three letters, all in lowercase ("sunday" or "sun", "thursday" or "thu", and so on). For the time, use the same format as when you're specifying the time alone. 📅

And if you want, you can precede a time or a day-and-time definition with the string "every" or "at". These words don't change the meaning at all — they just maybe make the output of the bos getrestart command easier to understand. cute lil readability moment. 🎀

  • -general — Sets the general restart time. 👑
  • -newbinary — Sets the binary restart time. 🔄
  • -cell <cell name> — Names the cell to run the command in. Do not combine this argument with the -localauth flag. For more details, see bos(8). 🧚
  • -noauth — Assigns the unprivileged identity "anonymous" to whoever's issuing the command. Do not combine this flag with the -localauth flag. For more details, see bos(8). 🙈
  • -localauth — Constructs a server ticket using a key from the local /etc/openafs/server/KeyFile or /etc/openafs/server/KeyFileExt file. The bos command interpreter presents that ticket to the BOS Server during mutual authentication. Do not combine this flag with the -cell or -noauth options. For more details, see bos(8). 🔐
  • -help — Prints the online help for this command. Every other valid option gets ignored. bye. 💅

🌈 EXAMPLES 🌈

This one sets the general restart time on the machine "fs4.example.com" to Saturday at 3:30 am:

% bos setrestart -server fs4.example.com -time "sat 3:30" -general

And this one sets the binary restart time on the machine "fs6.example.com" to 11:45 pm:

% bos setrestart -server fs6.example.com -time 23:45 -newbinary

ate. no crumbs. 🔥

👑 PRIVILEGE REQUIRED 👑

Whoever's issuing this command has got to be listed in the /etc/openafs/server/UserList file on the machine named by the -server argument. Or, they've gotta be logged onto a server machine as the local superuser "root" if the -localauth flag is included. main character credentials only. 💜

🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

BosConfig(5), KeyFile(5), KeyFileExt(5), UserList(5), bos(8), bos_getrestart(8), bos_restart(8)

IBM Corporation 2000. <http://www.ibm.com/> All Rights Reserved.

This documentation is covered by the IBM Public License Version 1.0. It was converted from HTML to POD by software written by Chas Williams and Russ Allbery, based on work by Alf Wachsmann and Elizabeth Cassell.

and that's the whole page bestie!! 🎀 this was OpenAFS, dated 2026-07-27 — go forth and schedule your restarts at a reasonable hour, ily, mwah 💖🦋✨

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