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Updates, reboot and shutdown

Updates of Esapanel

New versions come from the package repository, which the panel checks every hour. The page is Server › Updates: it shows the version installed, the latest of the channel and the list of the updates made with their outcome.

The channel

  • Stable: the versions tested. It is the choice for production servers.
  • Testing: the new versions before the others, for test servers.

Going from Testing to Stable does not bring back an older version: the server stays on the version it has until Stable reaches it.

Updating by itself or by hand

With Update Esapanel by itself on, the panel installs a new version in the time window and on the days you choose, after the days of Wait (days) (counted from when this panel first saw the version). Off, the panel only tells you that there is a new version, and you install it from the page.

During the update the panel does not answer for a minute or two while it restarts.

For a server many others depend on, such as the license server, wait a few days and choose the mornings of working days: a version arrives after other servers have tried it, and an error shows up when someone can step in.

What an update does

  1. It keeps a copy of the database of the panel and the package of the version installed.
  2. It updates the esapanel package only, not the whole system.
  3. It checks that the panel answers and that its services are running.

The outcome arrives by email. A failed update says how to go back to the previous version.

The security updates of Debian

With Security updates of Debian by themselves on, the security fixes of the system are installed every day by themselves. Esapanel is not among them: it follows the settings above. Turning them off leaves the system without its security fixes until someone updates it by hand.

The server never reboots by itself: the page says when a reboot is needed, for example after a kernel update.

Reboot and shutdown

Server › Reboot and shutdown reboots or shuts down the server from the panel, without a terminal.

When: in one minute, or at a time of day in your time zone (today if it has not passed yet, otherwise tomorrow). For example at night, after the security updates, when the updates page says the server needs a reboot. Until then the plan can be cancelled, from the page or from the notice at the top of every page.

While the server is down nothing works: the panel, the reception of the logs, the checks of the hosts. The devices that send their logs over UDP lose those of the minutes of the reboot; the agents keep them and send them afterwards. The reception of the logs records the interruption, and the customers see it in their logs.

Shut down: the panel cannot switch the server on again. After a shutdown it is switched on from the console of the provider or by hand. That is why the page asks you to write the name of the server: a check against shutting down the wrong server.

Choose for reboots a time when the customers feel it little, and tell them if they have devices that send over UDP only.