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Looks like their blog is down too ( http://blog.ksplice.com ). This was by far one of my favorite blogs. Good, long, articles about kernel hacking. I hope it comes back up soon and isn't gone for good.
Unfortunately for us, we're a CentOS shop (which KSplice supports). The "unfortunate" part comes from Oracle (who only supports Oracle "Unbreakable" Linux [which is 99% RHEL, BTW]).
TL;DR KSplice is about to lose us as a client once they drop support for CentOS (which will happen when the Oracle takeover is done).
The old Unix hacker in me likes Ksplice, from a hacker point of view. However, I wouldn't use it, except in exceptional circumstances (e.g., there is a patch we have to apply now but we can't do scheduled down time). I want to reboot after an update--even an update that does not technically require it--because I want to know my system is in a state that can boot. It is very annoying to do some update, not reboot, and…
This is why I can't stand Gentoo. We had a dude who was the Sysadmin before me who loved it. He upgraded the kernel deleted the old one and didn't reboot. Several months later the server had to be shutdown and didn't come backup. I spent several hours fighting to get the machine to a point where I could rebuild a working kernel. Within a week I prepared and migrated the system to something more reasonable.
I have to say that I am considering terminating my service with them.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It seems to me that your kernel issues are more related to your predecessor's failures as an admin than to Gentoo. Nothing you can do on Gentoo can't be done on most distributions, including poorly-done kernel upgrades.
Nah, it's gentoo that sucks. I don't see anything like that happening in binary distributions, or assembling anything from ports in FreeBSD. I've administered a few gentoo machines a few years ago and can attest that it's a major PIA. Or let me elaborate a bit, system failures that happened on gentoo didn't seem to happen on other systems, system failures that also happened on other system took significantly more tim…
It seems to me that Dobb's predecessor failed to understand what he was doing and therefore failed as an admin. If Gentoo required a level of understanding which he did not have, then he should not have been using Gentoo. That is exactly the reason I switched; I realized that I needed to spend time with other distributions learning more basic elements of Linux systems before I would be capable of adeptly administering a Gentoo system. In the hands of those more experienced, however, distributions such as Gentoo (or Slackware) are powerful tools.
The old Unix hacker in me likes Ksplice, from a hacker point of view. However, I wouldn't use it, except in exceptional circumstances (e.g., there is a patch we have to apply now but we can't do scheduled down time). I want to reboot after an update--even an update that does not technically require it--because I want to know my system is in a state that can boot. It is very annoying to do some update, not reboot, and…
> A few minutes planned downtime now in much better than hours of unplanned downtime at some indeterminate future time. This reminds me of something that OpenSolaris did that I really liked. When you updated packages, it would take a ZFS snapshot. It only took up space for the changed bits, and happened almost instantly. If things stopped working after the reboot, then you could select a GRUB menu option to boot into…
1. You upgrade postgres, and the new on-disk format isn't compatible with the old one.
2. You upgrade mysql, and the new on-disk format IS compatible with the old one, but the new version has a bug that you keep hitting. You want to downgrade without losing all the transactions that you've accrued since the upgrade.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Given Oracle's recent activities What do you mean? Sure, Oracle is an aggressive company, but they are clearly doing business, and not a non-practicing patent troll. Even in suing Google over Java in Android, they not only use Java but are the center of its development. Sun itself sued [Microsoft] over Java. This acquisition makes sense to them, since linux is a key part of their vertical offering. If no one else c…
Oracle is extremely aggressive about IP enforcement - and just because you haven't heard about it in court, doesn't mean that it isn't happening. Ninety-nine percent of these issues are settled quietly. I have been on the other side of licensing discussions twice this year alone. It is not just patents - they are actively trying to monetize their IP, including changing license terms (see the evolution of the license…
We may differ in the following, but I think it's reasonable to enforce your IP if you created it and use it. As an uISV, it's important to me that customers pay for it (although I'd find it unpleasant to pursue infringing customers). Changing the license terms for future versions seems reasonable. And changing support terms even more so since it's a contractual agreement. Everybody complains about Oracle licensing terms (of their own products, eg RDB), but everybody pays. I think they must be getting value for money.
Personally, I was (and am) unhappy with what Oracle is doing to Java - but I think it's reasonable. It was inevitable that they'd alter licensing terms in accordance with profitability. Oracle is a software company, unlike Sun which was a hardware company. And perhaps, pragmatically, that's for the best: Sun never made money from Java's success; now they are gone. Oracle's stewardship might be more realistic and sustainable. And a corporate steward seems important for mainstream adoption (though python, ruby etc seem to be doing OK without it).
Thanks for answer on continuations. I'd heard of them used for submarine patents, to defer issuance, but I'm shocked that the US allows new subject matter to be added and get the benefit of the original priority date! That should be a separate invention IMHO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuing_patent_application#C...
Your server configuration should tolerate nodes going down, so patching a kernel and rebooting your servers one at a time should be no big deal.