Check needs-restarting

Overview

Checks for processes that were started before they or one of their dependencies were updated. Useful for detecting servers that have been patched but not yet rebooted. Requires root or sudo.

Important Notes:

  • Red Hat-based distributions (RHEL, CentOS, Fedora, etc.)

  • Debian-based distributions (Debian, Ubuntu, etc.)

  • May take more than 10 seconds on Red Hat to execute

Data Collection:

  • On Red Hat: Uses the needs-restarting command. First checks needs-restarting --reboothint (return code 1 means reboot required), then needs-restarting for a process list of updated services.

  • On Debian: Uses needrestart -b if available, which reports kernel status and services needing restart. Falls back to checking /var/run/reboot-required.

Fact Sheet

Fact

Value

Check Plugin Download

https://github.com/Linuxfabrik/monitoring-plugins/tree/main/check-plugins/needs-restarting

Nagios/Icinga Check Name

check_needs_restarting

Check Interval Recommendation

Every day

Can be called without parameters

Yes

Runs on

Linux

Compiled for Windows

No

Requirements

RHEL: needs-restarting, Debian: None, optional needrestart

Help

usage: needs-restarting [-h] [-V] [--test TEST]

Checks for processes that were started before they or one of their
dependencies were updated. Returns WARN if a full system reboot is required or
if individual services need a restart. Useful for detecting servers that have
been patched but not yet rebooted. Requires root or sudo.

options:
  -h, --help     show this help message and exit
  -V, --version  show program's version number and exit
  --test TEST    For unit tests. Needs "path-to-stdout-file,path-to-stderr-
                 file,expected-retc".

Usage Examples

./needs-restarting

Output on Red Hat:

Found 17 running processes that have been updated and may need a restart:
1595 : /usr/lib/systemd/systemd-udevd
1483 : sshd: root@pts/1
1223 : qmgr -l -t unix -u
1222 : pickup -l -t unix -u
...

Output on Debian:

A system reboot may be required. Running Kernel 4.19.0-20-amd64 != Installed Kernel 5.10.0-13-amd64 (version upgrade pending). Found 3 running processes that have been updated and may need a restart:
* dbus.service
* getty@tty1.service
* systemd-logind.service

States

  • OK if no system or service restart is needed.

  • WARN if a system reboot is required.

  • WARN if services need a restart.

  • UNKNOWN if the OS is not supported.

Perfdata / Metrics

There is no perfdata.

Credits, License