How do I know when a reboot is required?

["Don" <dnrlinux san rr com>]

With MS Windows, it seems a reboot is required after nearly every software update.

 

One of the things I like about UNIX/Linux is the overall design of things such that reboots are not really part of the "problem resolution process".

 

If I use up2date to get a new httpd update, after it's installed I restart the httpd daemon.... similar for sshd updates etc.

For a kernel I reboot the whole machine....

 

But, how do I know what needs to be restarted/rebooted when updates to things like cron or glibc are installed? To "be safe" I could always reboot the machine after installing updates, but that seems unnecessary and certainly unwanted.

 

Thanks,

Don Russell

(North America: Pacific Time Zone)

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