Re: [cgl_specs] Use case - Live patching

Why do you think it is evil?  It is standard practice in most large 
telecom systems as it improves availability.

-Corey

Ralf Flaxa wrote:

>Speaking for SUSE/Novell I can at least say that live patching is evil
>and would never be considered supported. How shall you guarantee support
>or certification with such a mechanism in place?
>
>	Ralf
>
>On Mon, Mar 28, 2005 at 11:14:50AM +0900, Takashi Ikebe wrote:
>  
>
>>The following is a use case for a Live patching.  This
>>addresses AVL10.0 Live patching on CGL Specification 3.0.
>>Please feel free to comment / suggestion.
>>
>>Takashi.
>>-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>Description
>>OSDL CGL specifies that carrier grade Linux shall provide the mechanism
>>for dynamically replacing the symbols of a running process without
>>restarting. Dynamic replacement of symbols allows a process to access
>>patched functions or values without restarting and can improve process
>>availability.
>>
>>Desired Outcome
>>Mainline kernel acceptance or distro acceptance
>>
>>Participants/Roles
>>System administrators setup the requirements on installations. On
>>operation, system administrators apply patch with the requirement.
>>
>>Scenarios
>>On operation, system administrators apply patch with the requirement as
>>following scenario;
>>1.System administrators make patch file from diff file or new version's
>>source code.
>>2.System administrators load patch to the process with provided live
>>patch tool.
>>3.System administrators activate patch to the process with provided live
>>patch tool.
>>4.Confirm that the patch is correctly applied or not.
>>
>>Implementation Notes
>>The requirement need to have following functions;
>>- The function which loads the patch file to target process's memory area.
>>- The function which overwrites the branch operation code to the patch,
>>on the entry point of  target process's functions which wants to fix by
>>patch.
>>- The function which restores overwritten branch code.
>>- The function which unload the patch files.
>>Through above functions, the requirement realize on-line patch to target
>>process.
>>The requirement need to provide on-line patch even if the process is
>>multi-thread model process, or environment is SMP, and stop time of
>>target process should not over  100 milliseconds.
>>
>>References
>>Pannus project: http://pannus.sourceforge.net/
>>Live patching implementation:
>>http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/pannus/pannus_en.pdf
>>
>>
>>-- 
>>Takashi Ikebe
>>NTT Network Service Systems Laboratories
>>9-11, Midori-Cho 3-Chome Musashino-Shi,
>>Tokyo 180-8585 Japan
>>Tel : +81 422 59 4246, Fax : +81 422 60 4012
>>e-mail : [email protected]
>>    
>>