# Rebootless FreeBSD?



## xy16644 (Feb 10, 2010)

I just came across this:

http://www.ksplice.com/

Do you think FreeBSD would ever have something like this? Basically you can patch the kernel with the latest updates and never reboot the server! I can't believe they are charging for this product/service.

Nice idea, maybe there will be a port for FreeBSD in the future...:e


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## DutchDaemon (Feb 10, 2010)

Aren't they moving virtual servers / containers around, like e.g. migrating a XEN session to a different server, patching and rebooting the original server, and then moving the XEN session back, or something to that effect?


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## xy16644 (Feb 10, 2010)

I'm not sure to be honest. I thought it was something you installed on your Linux box and subscribed to and this allowed you to never have to reboot again. 

Maybe I have misunderstood what they are saying but either way, not having to reboot FreeBSD at all would be amazing!


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## fronclynne (Feb 10, 2010)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't AIX had this for a minute?


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## vermaden (Feb 10, 2010)

@xy16644

If you patch anything pther then kernel image, then you do not have to reboot, if you update kernel image, then you HAVE to reboot, there are some mechanisms like loading new kernel while still have running the old one, the newly loaded kernel takes the job and the old one is unloaded, for example like: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-kexec.html


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## phoenix (Feb 10, 2010)

[This is a reply to DutchDaemon's post.  Seems a bunch of extra posts appeared while I was typing.] 

No, ksplice does something along the lines of binary patching in-memory, does some weird trickery with pointers and address space, and allows you to "reboot" into a new kernel without actually rebooting the server.

Personally, I wouldn't trust it.  I'd prefer to reboot, and know that I am, for sure, only running code from a single kernel, with all the modules from a single kernel, and all the services running on code from that one single kernel.

If you need non-stop uptime, then look into clustering, HA, fail-over, etc.


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## xy16644 (Feb 10, 2010)

I just don't like the fact that you have to pay for this..WTF?!

It would be nice to never have to reboot it but we can dream hey? (this is just me being really fussy, FreeBSD hardly ever needs a reboot...yeah!)


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## SirDice (Feb 10, 2010)

Some people get religious when it comes to uptime :OO

If you need uninterrupted service go for backups, HA, failover. As phoenix said.
I also like to reboot things. Then you know everything is set up properly. Everything starts normally.
No need to worry about the really odd power cut, everything comes back online.
There's nothing worse then finding out the thing rebooted into a state where nothing works :O

It's a piece of iron for crying out loud :f


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## Blueprint (Feb 11, 2010)

fronclynne said:
			
		

> Correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't AIX had this for a minute?



AIX has alt disk installs or multibos, both require a reboot. They also now have live partition mobilitiy, which is what Dutch described for XEN, but that is different because you patching the virtual server not the guest itself.


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