Uptimes, autoreboots, and package upgrades

[Louis J. LeBlanc]

Hey folks.

This is really just a question about admin practices and procedures.  I
have a 5.4_RELEASE system that I'll be re-installing (clean, on a new hard
drive) with 6.0 some time in the next few months.  Before I do, I'm
interested in fine tuning my administrative ideology.

I hear a lot of boasting about uptimes and stability, and whatnot, and
with these boasts invariably come responses decrying the wisdom of keeping
a machine up for such a long time without resetting it.  Reasons abound,
but the one I see most often is related to the fact I keep my system well
updated, upgrading ports at least weekly.  Some of these ports are
libraries that fix stability issues, security issues, etc. and are often
used by daemons I keep running at all times - though only those absolutely
required to be accessible from outside are open through the firewall.

Regardless, I've seen some minor wierd behavior because of these upgrades,
and unfortunately, I sometimes see daemons refuse to start afterward. 
Postfix and Courier are the more important ones (to me, anyway) that have
misbehaved in this way.  Often it is related to a library or a security
package that was updated and required a config tweak with the upgrade
(particularly Sasl2).

So, I know restarting is important on occasion, but my real questions are:
Does anyone use a crontab reboot to make sure their system(s) get a
regular fresh start?  If so, how often - weekly, montly, bi-monthly?
Does anyone have a list of packages they flag for more cautious upgrade
procedures than just whipping them all into portupgrade?  What does this
process consist of besides reading the release and/or upgrade notes?

My list is a bit short so far, with only postfix, courier, and sasl*.  I
have considered putting SquirrelMail, Apache, and the Apache
addons/modules on the list, but I very rarely have trouble with them.

Thanks in advance.

Lou
-- 
Louis LeBlanc                 FreeBSD at keyslapper.net
Fully Funded Hobbyist,   KeySlapper Extrordinaire :þ
http://www.keyslapper.net                       Ô¿Ô¬