Steem Admin Tools / Smooth Server Reboot Script

Description

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Some Steem node maintainers may already have encountered problems when rebooting their dedicated servers (for example, after installing security updates) without stopping the running steemd instance(s) beforehand.

Just running reboot in the terminal will in many cases corrupt the database, which leads to a necessary full blockchain replay afterwards. This may not be the case when running the node as a service, because the system then waits for the process to gracefully shutdown, but otherwise one should be cautious about using the reboot command.

Yesterday, while I was preparing one of my servers that is running a full node for the coming SDS environment, I needed to reboot the system and I forgot to stop the main steemd process. As described, the database got corrupted and the following logs appeared:

Luckily, I created a backup of the blockchain folder a few hours before, which helped me to get things running again without much waiting time. I advice you to regularly create backups! Trust me, you don't want to wait for a week to replay the whole blockchain again ;)

I thought about how to solve the reboot issue once for all and I created a bash script that enables us to make a smooth reboot just by executing it with root privileges.

Bash Script

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#!/bin/bash
proc_name="steemd"

function checkProcesses()
{
    proc_ids=($(pidof "$proc_name"))
    proc_count=${#proc_ids[@]}
}

checkProcesses
for (( i=0; i<$proc_count; i++ )); do
    echo "Found process with id: ${proc_ids[$i]}. Sending SIGINT..."
    kill -SIGINT ${proc_ids[$i]}
done

while [ $proc_count -gt 0 ]
do
    echo "$proc_count process(es) still running. Waiting for close..."
    sleep 3
    checkProcesses
done

echo "No processes found. Rebooting system..."
reboot

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The script checks for running steemd processes, sends a SIGINT signal to each process found and waits for their finish, before starting the actual reboot command.

Just store the script in a file smooth_reboot.sh on your server, add execution rights with chmod +x smooth_reboot.sh and you are good to go.

The script can also be downloaded directly here:
steemworld.org/dl/smooth_reboot.sh

I hope this helps Steem witnesses and node providers in general to be able to reboot their system more smoothly from now on.

Terminal Output

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Steem On!

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_{If you like what I do and you want me to be your Steem witness,
please vote for @steemchiller on steemit.com/~witnesses or steemworld.org/witnesses.}