Ksplice

Ksplice is an open source extension of the Linux kernel which allows system administrators to apply security patches to a running kernel without having to reboot the operating system.

Installation

Install the ksplice package from the Arch User Repository.

Usage

Note: The following steps have only been tested on a custom Arch kernel.

First, you need some files from the previous kernel build: System.map and .config.

This example makes use of the --diffext option which creates a patch based on the differences between the old and the new source files.

Make a ksplice directory in the kernel source tree:

# mkdir -p src/ksplice

Copy System.map over from the previous build:

# cp System.map src/ksplice

Copy .config into the tree if it is not already in the source tree:

# cp .config src/

Create a ksplice patch and wait for the kernel to rebuild:

# ksplice-create --diffext=new src/

Apply the newly generated patch to the running kernel:

# ksplice-apply ksplice-*.tar.gz

See also

• Offical website of Ksplice
• Ksplice on Wikipedia
• How to use the Ksplice raw utilities