The new tools should help SUSE users quite a lot

Nov 20, 2014 09:47 GMT  ·  By

SUSE Linux Enterprise Live Patching has been implemented for customers of the SUSE operating system and it represents a real step forward in developing a distro that doesn't really need to be rebooted.

If you are a Linux user, then you know that one of the few things that actually require you to reboot your machine is the kernel update. The kernel sits at the core of the operating system and updating or patching it without rebooting is a very difficult task.

Well, that doesn't seem to be the case anymore, at least not for users of the SUSE Linux Enterprise, who now have a cool new feature available.

Regular Linux users might think that rebooting the system after a kernel update is not really a big deal because they have the time to do it, but enterprise users might not be able to.

The same could be said about a Linux-based server, which you want to patch but don't want to shut down. There are numerous scenarios where a reboot is more than a simple inconvenience, and the newly-proposed Live Patching system is a great solution.

Live Patching for the Linux kernel is here

This particular feature didn't just land out of the blue. In fact, it's based on the kGraft project, which has been in the works for quite some time. It wasn't stable enough to be implemented until now, but it looks like the developers have finally managed to get it going.

"SUSE today announced the availability of SUSE Linux Enterprise Live Patching, allowing enterprise Linux customers to perform system patching without rebooting, saving the cost of downtime and increasing service availability. SUSE Linux Enterprise Live Patching, based on the kGraft project, provides a stream of packages to update a running kernel without interruption."

"Unlike some other Linux kernel live patching technologies, SUSE Linux Enterprise Live Patching doesn't require stopping the whole system while it performs the patching. And because it is a fully open source solution, it allows for easy code review of the patch sources. SUSE is engaging with the upstream community to help ensure a sustainable future for kernel live patching on Linux in general and SUSE Linux Enterprise specifically," write the SUSE developers on the official website.

It remains to be seen just how popular this method will become. If it catches on and other distros (non-commercial) will implement a similar function, Linux might become a restartless operating system.

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