below is a conversation I just had with a friend.. /some/ people might find this interesting. It certainly fooled me ;).. (btw, this was a production web server!)...
Neill
Neill Newman neill@entora.co.uk on 06/06/2001 16:50:38
Subject: wrapping uptimes ??
okies, I've experienced something weird...
just checked my web server, was up for just under 500 days a few weeks ago, checked today, uptime = 9 days "oh no I've been hacked" I thought... I looked all through the logs, nothing is strange, no discontigious log entries (although it seems), no reboot messages in the logs.. I realise that this could be the work of a clever hacker, but the file modificatin times on /etc/passwd and the like are months old...
it looks as if the machine hasn't been rebooted, but uptime says that it was rebooted 9 days ago ?? is it possible that I've experienced a magic uptime wrap ?? please tell me so, I don't fancy rebuilding this box ;)...
Sz
Linux messures uptime in hundredth of a second in a 32bit interger.
2^32 = 4,294,967,296 86,400 seconds in one day = 8,640,000 hundredths of a secon Therefore, 4,294,967,296 / 8,640,000 = 497.1 days
You have just encountered the end of the uptime interger!!
Andi
p.s. The shell may confused on file dates et cetera