Restart Endpoints Remotely
Restarting managed endpoints in a timely manner ensures that relevant updates are delivered on time and your infrastructure remains protected against malware attacks and system vulnerabilities.
Action1 allows you to reboot endpoints remotely – to install updates or apply patches. You can force reboot immediately or schedule it for a convenient time, ensuring minimal disruption for remote employees.
How Action1 Handles Reboots?
Logged-in Users: If a user is logged in, even though there is a non-interactive session (such as a remote terminal server session), Action1 will show a reboot prompt in that user’s logon session. This provides an opportunity for the user to postpone the reboot, up to the maximum time configured with the Message Timeout setting (default is 4 hours).
Locked Sessions: If the session is locked, the reboot prompt will still be displayed. The user will see this prompt immediately upon unlocking their session.
Multiple Users: In scenarios where multiple users are logged in, each user will receive their own reboot prompt within their logon sessions. Any one of these users can permit the reboot to proceed; it doesn’t require approval from all users.
No Users: If no one is logged in, Action1 will proceed to reboot the system immediately without displaying any prompts.
To restart a remote endpoint:
- Navigate to the Endpoints page.
- Locate one or several endpoints you want to restart and click the Reboot button on top of the endpoints list.
Alternatively, navigate to Automations to create a reboot automation – this will help you create a workflow that ensures your endpoints get restarted according to a preset schedule. For more information, see Automation with Action1 .
- On the Reboot step, choose if you want to warn users that reboot is coming. The notice will appear on their screens before the endpoints restart. You can keep a default text or enter any other text. Then, specify the message timeout. Make sure to provide enough time to allow users to save their work and prepare for restart.
-
Set the duration for how long the message will remain visible. Make sure you provide enough time to allow users to save their work and prepare for the reboot.
- On the Select Endpoints step, check the endpoints you plan to reboot. You can include more endpoints by clicking Add Endpoints. Action1 enables you to add endpoints individually, or you can specify an endpoint group.
- On the Schedule step, specify the reboot schedule.
-
- You can execute a reboot as a one-time action: force a reboot immediately or pick a specific date and time.
- You can configure the automation to run regularly according to a preset schedule. Select whether to use Local Endpoint Time or your Current Time Zone.
-
- By default, Action1 will attempt to reboot the powered-off endpoints if they get back online within 24-hour time frame. You can update this setting in the Missed schedule retry and maintenance window.
NOTE: Make sure not to set the missing schedule time frame setting to an interval longer than the frequency of action execution (i.e., do not set it to 48 hours if the action is executed daily).
- After clicking Finish, you’ll be forwarded to the Automation page. If you selected to run the action immediately, you will proceed with the History page, where you can see the execution details.
Reboot Prompt Customization
By default, Action1 notifies a logged-in user about the upcoming reboot. To customize the notification window, navigate to Configuration | Advanced and select Reboot Prompt Customization. You can provide custom messages and apply it to a specific scope, such as a group or organization.
