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up vote 6 down vote favorite

Ksplice is an amazing software (or whatever it is). It changes the way kernel updates work: Instead of rebooting after an update, it patches memory, so you don't need to do anything.

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2 Answers

up vote 6 down vote

The Ubuntu Kernel Team does not currently have the resources available to perform the additional work to create (and test!) ksplice modules for all of the supported Ubuntu kernels. Uptrack is getting used on production systems in a lot of big companies. I would not dismiss it out of hand, since staying up to date with kernel vulnerability fixes is very important. If it's a choice between ksplice (and the potential dangers of not setting /proc/sys/kernel/modules_disabled to 1 immediately after booting), and waiting days or weeks for a good time to reboot, I'd recommend ksplice. And when you do reboot, the fresh "real" kernel will be waiting for you too.

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Well for one thing, injecting anything into the kernel is always a dangerous operation. For another AFAIK it's closed source and is only free on Desktop versions of Ubuntu and Fedora.

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Maybe ubuntu developers could make something like this. It would be a GREAT advantage for ubuntu server compared to any other linux distro. – Ignacio Oct 29 '10 at 1:53
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Ksplice is in universe, so it can't be closed source. (There might be 3rd party companies that provide ksplice-based patches though.) – JanC Oct 29 '10 at 3:27
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ksplice is open source. Uptrack, the service that provides kernel updates using ksplice, is producing modules from public kernel patches. Anyone can do this, they just make it super easy. – Kees Cook Oct 29 '10 at 4:27
Then if anyone can produce the patches, and AFAIK its pretty simple, there is no reason ubuntu is not doing this. – Ignacio Oct 29 '10 at 18:10

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