Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S261800AbVDRGfm (ORCPT ); Mon, 18 Apr 2005 02:35:42 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S261801AbVDRGfm (ORCPT ); Mon, 18 Apr 2005 02:35:42 -0400 Received: from zcars04f.nortelnetworks.com ([47.129.242.57]:12186 "EHLO zcars04f.nortelnetworks.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S261800AbVDRGfg (ORCPT ); Mon, 18 Apr 2005 02:35:36 -0400 Message-ID: <42635518.6040704@nortel.com> Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2005 00:35:04 -0600 X-Sybari-Space: 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 From: Chris Friesen User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.6) Gecko/20040115 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Chris Wedgwood CC: Takashi Ikebe , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: [PATCH x86_64] Live Patching Function on 2.6.11.7 References: <4263275A.2020405@lab.ntt.co.jp> <20050418040718.GA31163@taniwha.stupidest.org> <4263356D.9080007@lab.ntt.co.jp> <20050418061221.GA32315@taniwha.stupidest.org> In-Reply-To: <20050418061221.GA32315@taniwha.stupidest.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1513 Lines: 35 Chris Wedgwood wrote: > On Mon, Apr 18, 2005 at 01:19:57PM +0900, Takashi Ikebe wrote: > > >>From our experience, sometimes patches became to dozens to hundreds >>at one patching, and in this case GDB based approach cause target >>process's availability descent. > could you perhaps explain some *real* *world* applications/systems > where this is necessary and why existing APIs won't work with them > perhaps? In the telecom space it's quite common to want to modify multiple running binaries with as little downtime as possible. (Beyond a threshold it becomes FCC-reportable in the US, and everyone wants to avoid that...) Our old proprietary OS had explicit support for replacing running binary code on the fly, so customers have gotten used to the ability. Now they want equivalent functionality with our linux-based stuff. We've done some proprietary stuff (ie. pre-OSDL CGL) in this area, but it was apparently a real pain and was quite restrictive on the application writers. (I was not involved with that portion of the project.) For general application support I suspect some kernel support will be required. Whether this is the way to go or whether it can be done using existing mechanisms, I'm not knowledgeable enough to comment. Chris - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/