# Server maintenance. What are they actually doing? **URL:** \ **Category:** random\ **Created:** [June 19, 2008, 5:18am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/server-maintenance-what-are-they-actually-doing/263781 "2008-06-19T05:18:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Ohls](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/59ef9b/32.png) [@Ohls](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/Ohls)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2008, 5:18am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/server-maintenance-what-are-they-actually-doing/263781/1 "2008-06-19T05:18:23Z")
MMOs, Forums, sites in generall, they all go down for server maintenance from time to time. And I’ve always wondered, what are they actually doing during these downtimes? I mean hardware don’t exactly degrade like an engine does. Are they just defragging HDDs basically? Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@nobody](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/nobody)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2008, 5:20am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/server-maintenance-what-are-they-actually-doing/263781/2 "2008-06-19T05:20:34Z")
I would assume they are basically never defragging hard drives. Most likely they’re fixing a bug or upgrading/updating part of the software that interacts with the database. ---
**Author:** ![Jeff\_Wheeler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/59ef9b/32.png) [@Jeff\_Wheeler](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/Jeff_Wheeler)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2008, 5:42am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/server-maintenance-what-are-they-actually-doing/263781/3 "2008-06-19T05:42:38Z")
Most servers use filesystems that don’t really fragment. Essentially, that’s only a problem for Windows’s NTFS and FAT filesystems. 😛 For the most part, _nobody_ is correct — they’re just upgrading software and such. They will probably clean out stuff like _/tmp_ and such, too, and boot clean following a filesystem check (_fsck_). ---
**Author:** ![actionAction](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/user_avatar/forum.kirupa.com/actionaction/32/3987_2.png) [@actionAction](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/actionAction)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2008, 6:09am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/server-maintenance-what-are-they-actually-doing/263781/4 "2008-06-19T06:09:53Z")
Unions require server admins to give the gerbils a 30 minute break from their wheels every 28 hours to smoke cigarettes and drink coffee (they run a lot). ---
**Author:** ![kirupa](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/user_avatar/forum.kirupa.com/kirupa/32/11616_2.png) [@kirupa](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/kirupa)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2008, 6:27am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/server-maintenance-what-are-they-actually-doing/263781/5 "2008-06-19T06:27:52Z")
Whenever these forums go down at around midnight-ish, it is to basically do a repair/optimize on tables in MySQL. ---
**Author:** ![kdd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecb155/32.png) [@kdd](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/kdd)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2008, 6:33am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/server-maintenance-what-are-they-actually-doing/263781/6 "2008-06-19T06:33:08Z")
^ What kirupa said. Repair/Optimize to keep them up-to-date. And what nobody said, to upgrade software. ---
**Author:** ![nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@nobody](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/nobody)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2008, 6:38am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/server-maintenance-what-are-they-actually-doing/263781/7 "2008-06-19T06:38:22Z")
^Thanks for the validation. ---
**Author:** ![kdd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecb155/32.png) [@kdd](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/kdd)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2008, 6:45am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/server-maintenance-what-are-they-actually-doing/263781/8 "2008-06-19T06:45:56Z")
You’re welcome! 🙂 Though, I might be missing some things, as this also depends on the owner or the people who maintain them. ---
**Author:** ![Phenex](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/user_avatar/forum.kirupa.com/phenex/32/686_2.png) [@Phenex](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/Phenex)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2008, 11:35am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/server-maintenance-what-are-they-actually-doing/263781/9 "2008-06-19T11:35:54Z")
Your footer really does represent you kdd. :lol: ---
**Author:** ![Templarian](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/user_avatar/forum.kirupa.com/templarian/32/7152_2.png) [@Templarian](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/Templarian)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2008, 12:51pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/server-maintenance-what-are-they-actually-doing/263781/10 "2008-06-19T12:51:41Z")
For an MMO they are probably wide scale patching the entire clusters for each server group. This probably isn’t the fastest thing when you figure there are like 3 bajllion people in some games. For anything else they are probably just doing normal maintenance like k said. ---
**Author:** ![sekasi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5f8ce5/32.png) [@sekasi](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/sekasi)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2008, 1:50pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/server-maintenance-what-are-they-actually-doing/263781/11 "2008-06-19T13:50:19Z")
Cleaning up log files and taking backups of them, cleaning up all temp and cache dirs and backing them up. Restarting the hardware, restarting httpd and that jazz, troubleseeking database environmental vars and adjusting (lowmem\_prunes and such) installing new software and replacing old hardware. ---
**Author:** ![kdd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecb155/32.png) [@kdd](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/kdd)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2008, 3:39pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/server-maintenance-what-are-they-actually-doing/263781/12 "2008-06-19T15:39:26Z")
[ot]Thanks Phenex! :lol:[/ot] ---
**Author:** ![hl1](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/user_avatar/forum.kirupa.com/hl1/32/849_2.png) [@hl1](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/hl1)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2008, 4:06pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/server-maintenance-what-are-they-actually-doing/263781/13 "2008-06-19T16:06:33Z")
Some sites just do it to be cool and gain attention. _cough_ TWITTER _cough_ ---
**Author:** ![wiifanatic](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/user_avatar/forum.kirupa.com/wiifanatic/32/2995_2.png) [@wiifanatic](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/wiifanatic)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2008, 5:12pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/server-maintenance-what-are-they-actually-doing/263781/14 "2008-06-19T17:12:48Z")
^ hahahahaha Same goes for jaiku, with their overheating crap