Messages in this thread | | | Date | Sun, 27 Apr 2008 21:58:20 +0200 | From | "Jesper Juhl" <> | Subject | Re: A system for rebootless kernel security updates |
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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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