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Re: hot patching



Oh i am really sorry to confuse you. What i meant is as follows

the point is not to add or remove a module. It mainly is used for kernel.

I will explain with an example. Suppose we have implemeneted a functionality using some
algorithm, unfortunately we see that the algorithm [or simply the code] contains some bug, or
some performance penalty so we want to replace that function with a debuged version.
Previously what we used to do is to compile and link the function to get a new kernel image
which is then used for booting. Here what i am suggesting is to link that function with the kernel
which is already booted. There is no need to bring the machine down.

why i said it is useful for OS developers is because, everytime we used to find bugs in the code
which we have written and each time we would rebuild the entire kernel and reboot with it. But
this hot patching technique could avoid that. By this method its enough to complie the function.
Then we can write some utility similar to insmod which will patch the old function with the
new one.

hope this time i have cleared u.

Arun Sharma wrote:

> How about
>
> # rmmod foo
> # insmod foo.o
>
>         -Arun
>