Topic summary
Linux kernel mainline
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Linux kernel.
Live patching
Kernel updates can be applied without rebooting by using live patching technologies such as Ksplice, kpatch and kGraft. Initial support for live kernel patching was merged into the Linux kernel mainline in version 4.0, released on 12 April 2015. The feature, known as livepatch, uses the kernel's ftrace functionality and provides a common infrastructure for hot patches supplied through kernel modules, together with interfaces for userspace management tools. In its initial Linux 4.0 implementation, livepatch support was limited to the x86 architecture and provided basic infrastructure rather than a complete live-patching consistency model.