On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 12:28 PM, Les Mikesell lesmikesell@gmail.com wrote:
Rob Kampen wrote:
I have a dedicated * CentOS box that shows today as uptime 543 days. I built from scratch as I needed to support a four port analog trunk card. This does not have internet access as I'm running it like an old fashioned PABX - just with great sip / linux based snom desk phones and all the attendant wiz-bang super stuff that * provides.
I do want to do an update of it all to latest versions etc. but when it just keeps working it is hard to justify the down time and potential hic-ups.
If you are very well firewalled and trust all the local users you might get away with ignoring security updates but it's mostly a matter of luck. With the stock CentOS components, your downtime for an update is normally just a reboot and problems are extremely rare. If you'd added custom or 3rd party code items there's a somewhat greater risk, but it is still pretty unlikely that an update would break things - or that you wouldn't have heard about other people having a problem.
If I understand Rob correctly here, there is actually no need for a firewall. He's not on the Internet. He's using analog trunks and SIP phones in a closed system. He's basically got a traditional key system or PBX switch that just happens to be based on CentOS/Asterisk.
(Traditional telephone switches have been based on UNIX for years.)