What does the (!) mean after uptime on htop

Question

I was analyzing some web heads looking at htop and noticed the following

Uptime: 301 days(!), 23:47:39

What does the (!) mean?

@JoelDavis so the (!) doesn't mean anything else then the server has been up for 301 days? — brentwpeterson, Aug 13 '14 at 20:33
They show the exact code in the link but yeah it's basically just saying "OMG!" — Bratchley, Aug 13 '14 at 20:37
@JoelDavis - why not write that up as the A so we can get this closed out? — slm, Aug 13 '14 at 23:42

score 200 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 16 '17 at 12:59

200

htop author here. Yes, as others already mentioned, it indeed shows up after 100 days of uptime.

The reason is nothing fancy, it's just an Easter egg in the software. Consider that the program is impressed with your uptime, and take it as you will. :)

answered Mar 16 '17 at 12:59

Hisham H M

2,100

20

It's always nice to see a definitive answer like this. – Reinstate Monica -- notmaynard Dec 16 '18 at 06:15
1

impressed with your uptime seems like wrong wording to me. Many standard Linux-distributions don't have live kernel patching and stuff enabled, but publish security fixes almost daily. I use this more than a warning, especially when the distribution already notifies in SSH-logins that a system restart is required. – Thorsten Schöning Nov 20 '19 at 10:51
5

So it's a cryptic part of the UI, that serves no more modern purpose other than to send users to StackExchange asking about it. – jorisw Jun 06 '22 at 13:21
I currently have 908 days. Can we have two exclamation marks at 1000? ;-) – Christoph Feb 06 '24 at 18:15
Most people worry with the (!). Can we have any of these instead? – Majal Feb 27 '24 at 06:50

cuonglm · Accepted Answer · 2015-09-25T08:36:02.850

148

From htop source code, file UptimeMeter.c, you can see:

char daysbuf[15];
if (days > 100) {
   sprintf(daysbuf, "%d days(!), ", days);
} else if (days > 1) {
   sprintf(daysbuf, "%d days, ", days);
} else if (days == 1) {
   sprintf(daysbuf, "1 day, ");
} else {
   daysbuf[0] = '\0';
}

I think ! here is just a mark that server has been up for more than 100 days.

Reference

http://sourceforge.net/p/htop/mailman/htop-general/?viewmonth=200707

edited Sep 25 '15 at 08:36

answered Aug 14 '14 at 07:33

cuonglm

153,898

So there's a buffer overflow after 9999 days of uptime? (buffer seems to be char[32] now) – nspo Jul 18 '19 at 20:56
I challenge you to keep a server running for 27 years without ever shutting it down once :) – Davide Jul 02 '23 at 10:10
challenge NOT accepter :)) – DEKKER Jul 24 '23 at 13:40

score 36 · Answer 3 · edited Oct 14 '14 at 17:45

36

htop shows the exclamation mark when the server has been up since 100 or more days.

While once system administrators had pride in showing long uptimes, nowadays the system has to be rebooted to be kept up to date with new kernels and some security fixes. For such reason, a long uptime is probably not a good thing and I tend to interpret the exclamation mark as a warning sign.

edited Oct 14 '14 at 17:45

drs

5,453

answered Oct 14 '14 at 17:10

Raffaele D'Elia

461

9

While your answer is succinct (and apparently correct), adding some links to relevant documentation or supporting sources would be a positive. – HalosGhost Oct 14 '14 at 17:49
7

In some cases you can keep up to date without reboots. However issue is that after many changes you cannot be sure that system will boot up in case of unplanned reboot. So it's not a bad idea to do planned reboots for testing. – Tadas Sasnauskas Jan 15 '15 at 09:02
so the live patch in linux kernel 4 is not necessary? since the system has to be booted regularly for bug checking? – Chenming Zhang Jun 17 '15 at 04:17
I use kernel care to make my kernel rebootless. – allquixotic Feb 10 '16 at 18:33

What does the (!) mean after uptime on htop

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