How to safely reboot your VPS or dedicated server

Rebooting a server restarts all services and applies kernel updates. It briefly takes your site offline, so plan it appropriately. Most reboots complete in 60–120 seconds.

When to reboot

• After applying Linux kernel updates (required for the new kernel to take effect)
• When a service (MySQL, Nginx, PHP-FPM) fails to restart normally
• After major system configuration changes
• When the server is in an inconsistent state and SSH is still accessible
• As a last resort when the server is unresponsive (use CustomerPanel force-reboot)

Safe reboot via SSH

A graceful reboot sends shutdown signals to all processes before restarting. This is always preferred when SSH is accessible:

# Reboot immediately
reboot

# Schedule reboot in 5 minutes (gives time to notify users)
shutdown -r +5 "Server will reboot in 5 minutes for maintenance"

# Cancel a scheduled shutdown
shutdown -c

After issuing the reboot command, your SSH connection will drop within a few seconds. Wait 60–120 seconds, then attempt to reconnect.

Reboot via CustomerPanel

1. Log in to customerpanel.ca
2. Go to Services → My Services → your VPS
3. Click Reboot
4. Confirm the action

The CustomerPanel reboot sends a graceful shutdown signal first. If the server is completely unresponsive, use Force Reboot (equivalent to holding the power button-processes are killed immediately without clean shutdown).

What to check after reboot

1. SSH back in and verify the server is up
2. Check that all services are running: systemctl status nginx php8.2-fpm mysql
3. Visit your website to confirm it loads correctly
4. Check error logs for anything that failed to start: journalctl -xe

Services set to enabled in systemctl start automatically at boot. If a service is not starting automatically, run systemctl enable servicename to enable it.

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