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A "Never Reboot" Service For Linux

An anonymous reader writes "Ksplice, the company based on the MIT Ksplice project, is now offering its 'never reboot' service for Red Hat, Debian, and other Linux distros. You subscribe and get real-time kernel security updates that apply in-memory instead of rebooting. Last summer we discussed the free service for Ubuntu. Cool tech, but will people really pay $4 a month for this?"

5 of 321 comments (clear)

  1. Re:How long till they.. by wcb4 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Its a shame that MS never figured out how to actually implement this. How many times do I have to restart my computer to finish applying update?

    --
    I reject your reality ... and substitute my own.
  2. Re:How long till they.. by JSG · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The patent on this was filed in 2002. Yet in 2010 I am still making a handsome profit in overtime rebooting customer systems on a "patch Tuesday" monthly frenzy.

    Please MS, don't implement this one.

  3. hrm... by Charliemopps · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Color me stupid but wouldn't any application in which you'd rather not be rebooting (i.e. Router, firewall, file server, etc...) be the exact same application in which you'd NEVER want some 3rd party having access to your kernel? I mean, if a large percent of distros were using this I can just imagine it would be the A#1 target for every malicious coder in the world.

  4. Re:How long till they.. by __aasqbs9791 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yeah, I love the updates that require a reboot so they can install another update that then requires another reboot.

  5. Re:It can be quite beneficial by drsmithy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The occasional reboot, under controlled circumstances, is an excellent test of what will happen in an emergency situation. Mainly, it answers the question of whether the server and required services actually will all come back up by themselves.

    More importantly, if your service architecture can't handle the scheduled outage of individual servers, then it is unquestionably broken.

    If you are concerned with individual server uptimes having a bearing on anything except your e-penis, then You're Doing It Wrong.