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SubjectRe: A system for rebootless kernel security updates
2008/4/27 Willy Tarreau <w@1wt.eu>:
> On Sun, Apr 27, 2008 at 12:17:00PM +0200, Pavel Machek wrote:
> > On Thu 2008-04-24 16:26:44, Tomasz Chmielewski wrote:
> > > Jeff Arnold wrote:
> > >
> > > >I've put together an automatic system for applying
> > > >kernel security patches to the Linux kernel without
> > > >rebooting it, and I wanted to share this system with
> > > >the community in case others find it useful or
> > > >interesting.
> > >
> > > Hmm, the idea seem to be patented by Microsoft, i.e.
> > > this patent from December 2002:
> > >
> > > http://www.google.com/patents?id=cVyWAAAAEBAJ&dq=hotpatching
> > >
> > > (and other patents by Microsoft if you search for
> > > "hotpatching").
> >
> > ...so US will not be able to fix security holes without reboot, good.
> > Perhaps they fix their stupid laws after next worm outbreak...
>
> Sounds like a bullshit patent. I remember having loaded a lot of NLM
> patches under netware 4.0 in 96-97 without ever rebooting. I think
> that the patches only redefined the faulty symbol(s) they wanted to
> patch. That was pretty convenient because when in doubt, you could
> simply unload the modules and get back to previous situation.
>

And then there's 'alternatives' that patch running code, there's kexec
and I guess you could even say that various root kits that patch the
running kernel get prior art on that patent ;)

--
Jesper Juhl <jesper.juhl@gmail.com>
Don't top-post http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/T/top-post.html
Plain text mails only, please http://www.expita.com/nomime.html


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