How To Install Needrestart on Rocky Linux 9

In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Needrestart on Rocky Linux 9. As a system administrator, it is important to ensure that all services on your server are running with the latest security patches and updates. However, after installing updates, it is often necessary to restart services for the changes to take effect. This is where needrestart comes in handy, as it can automatically detect which services need to be restarted after updates are installed.

This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of the Needrestart on Rocky Linux. 9.

Prerequisites

• A server running one of the following operating systems: Rocky Linux 9.
• It’s recommended that you use a fresh OS install to prevent any potential issues.
• SSH access to the server (or just open Terminal if you’re on a desktop).
• An active internet connection. You’ll need an internet connection to download the necessary packages and dependencies for Needrestart.
• A non-root sudo user or access to the root user. We recommend acting as a non-root sudo user, however, as you can harm your system if you’re not careful when acting as the root.

Install Needrestart on Rocky Linux 9

Step 1. The first step is to update your system to the latest version of the package list. To do so, run the following commands:

sudo dnf install epel-release
sudo dnf update

Step 2. Installing Needrestart on Rocky Linux 9.

By default, Needrestart is available on the Rocky Linux 9 base repository. Now install Needrestart on Rocky Linux 9 using the below command:

sudo dnf install needrestart

The installation process will start, and you will be prompted to confirm the installation by typing ‘Y‘ and pressing Enter.

You can verify that Needrestart is installed by running the following command:

needrestart -v

Step 3. Configuring Needrestart.

Needrestart comes with a variety of options that allow you to customize how it works. Here are some of the most useful options you can configure:

1. Automatic Restart: By default, Needrestart will prompt the user to restart any processes that require it. However, you can enable automatic restart by editing the configuration file located at /etc/needrestart/needrestart.conf. Find the line that reads NEEDRESTART_AUTO=0 and change it to NEEDRESTART_AUTO=1. This will cause Needrestart to automatically restart any processes that require it.
2. Checking Interval: By default, Needrestart checks for updated packages every 5 minutes. You can change the checking interval by editing the configuration file located at /etc/needrestart/needrestart.conf. Find the line that reads NEEDRESTART_INTERVAL=300 and change the value to the number of seconds you want between checks.
3. Notifications: You can configure Needrestart to send email notifications when it detects processes that require restarting. Edit the configuration file located at /etc/needrestart/needrestart.conf and add the following lines:

NEEDRESTART_NOTIFY=1
NEEDRESTART_NOTIFY_SMTP=your-smtp-server:port
NEEDRESTART_NOTIFY_FROM=your-email-address
NEEDRESTART_NOTIFY_TO=recipient-email-address

Replace your-smtp-server:port with your SMTP server and port, your-email-address with your email address, and recipient-email-address with the recipient’s email address.

Congratulations! You have successfully installed Needrestart. Thanks for using this tutorial for installing the Needrestart on your Rocky Linux 9 system. For additional help or useful information, we recommend you check the official Needrestart website.