Linux 4.0 Goes Live With Live Kernel Patching
Found on eWEEK on Monday, 13 April 2015
The Linux 4.0 kernel is very much a "solid code progress" release, according to Torvalds. The live kernel patching capability is not a new feature in the broader Linux ecosystem. Oracle has a technology capability known as Ksplice that enables live kernel patching, although Ksplice is not open source code that is directly integrated in the upstream mainline Linux kernel.
In addition to the new live patching code, there is a new Linux "code of conflict" that was merged into the kernel during the Linux 4.0 development cycle. The code of conflict is an attempt to help deal with potential conflict between Linux kernel developers.
A reboot now and then is not much of a problem, so all the live-patching and faster boot times (as promised by systemd) is rather pointless. If you really require high availability, and a reboot is an issue, then your HA design is deeply flawed anyway.