Re: Binary Kernel Patching - Upgrading without a reboot
Jordan Mendelson (jordy@wserv.com)
Sat, 19 Jun 1999 01:35:24 -0400
> On Fri, 18 Jun 1999, Jordan Mendelson wrote:
> >
> > I know a while back there was talk of a method of upgrading your
> > kernel for things like security holes, new features, etc using a
> > binary method similar to the way we use insmod to load kernel modules.
> >
> > Does anyone know what happened to all the plans that were made? It
> > sure would be nice not to have to reboot to upgrade my kernels.
> >
>
> You know, I don't know a whole lot about the internals of an operating
> system... but I do believe that you have to be crazy to think that you can
> change the *core* of an OS and not reboot it... Think about it. You can't
> do that with a user-level program, the exact reason escapes my mind now,
> but it has to do with how the memory is mapped during execution.
I was thinking more on the lines of small patches. For example, HP/UX has the
ability to use it's kernel module system to make binary patches to the kernel
itself while it is running. You could, for instance, patch a bug in the
scheduler without requiring a reboot.
Of course, this is partially possible today with linux if the peice you want to
upgrade is compiled as a module already.
Jordan
--
Jordan Mendelson : http://jordy.wserv.com
Web Services, Inc. : http://www.wserv.com
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