Configuring Automatic Restarts

 

Via the Policies page of your console, you can control when your endpoint devices automatically restart to apply updates and patches.

If you want to control restart options for your devices, you must use the Hub, as neither the On-Premise Console nor local clients have these options.

 

Often, patches and updates require devices to be restarted after installation. When you install patches using policies, you can tell devices to restart and control when that restart begins. If patches are installed but those patches don’t require a restart, the devices won’t be restarted.

There are two main types of restart you can configure: Required and Periodic. Required restarts need to occur when a service (e.g. an Antivirus update or patch) requires a restart, while periodic restarts are not dependent on a service requesting a restart, but occur according to what is set in the policy under Periodic Restarts.

If the device is offline when the restart task is scheduled, it will not be restarted once it comes back online.

Configuring Restarts

To access restart settings:

1. Open the Policies page
2. Click the desired policy to open its Detail drawer
3. Select the Settings tab, then General
4. Expand the Restart Options section

Required Restarts

For required restarts, you can choose from the following options:

• Restart at a specific time: Choose the day and time when required restarts will occur. Via the checkboxes under Restart prompt, you can choose whether to allow the users to postpone or cancel the restart.
  • The Same day option refers to the day a service requiring a restart is deployed.
  • The configuration uses the devices' local time.
  • The users will be notified via a pop-up dialog 60 minutes before the restart.

• Restart after logging out: The users will be notified about the upcoming restart, which will happen once they log out.
  • If no user is logged in, the devices will restart immediately

• Restart immediately: Via the checkboxes under Restart prompt, you can choose whether to allow the users to postpone or cancel the restart.The users will be notified via a pop-up dialog 60 minutes before the restart.
• Do not restart: No restart will occur automatically. You will have to restart manually either from the console or locally on endpoint devices.
  • Choosing this option could affect future patch or update deployments if there is a restart pending on Windows OS.
  • For policies created with the Avast recommended policy for Servers template in the Hub, the default restart option is set to Do not restart.

Periodic Restarts

If you want to restart your devices periodically, choose one of the available frequency options:

• Daily (then specify time of the day)
• Weekly (then specify day and time of the week)
• Monthly (then specify day and time of the month)
  • For monthly scans, please ensure the day of the month you’ve chosen occurs every month. For example, do not choose the 31st day of the month unless you specifically want to skip scanning on months shorter than 31 days.

You can allow your users to postpone or cancel the restart by ticking the respective checkboxes under Restart prompt.

If you don't want to set up any periodic restarts, simply leave the frequency set to Never.