Recently I heard a lecture on best admin practices and they said to set servers to auto update and auto reboot. The few servers I have have webserver, database and an app and reboot for kernel ...

One of Linux's advantages has always been that you rarely need to reboot it. Now, a new program, CloudLinux's KernelCare, tries to make rebooting totally unnecessary.

Ksplice Uptrack, whose general availability was announced today, eliminates the need to reboot Linux servers to perform monthly updates and security patches, the Cambridge, Mass. company said.

You can, however, configure Linux to automatically reboot on a kernel panic by making a small modification to /etc/sysctl.conf, a configuration file that tweaks many kernel operating parameters.