Re: Security Updates Without Rebooting

[Stuart Low <stuart () serverpeak com>]

Hey,

> Can someone explain how to apply security patches on the system without 
> rebooting the machine?
> I guess that I cant patch the kernel without compiling and rebooting the 
> machine, so the only way is with iptables and keeping the daemons "fresh"?

Well, if you have a customised kernel you'll probably find that your
need to reboot with a new kernel becomes fairly low (Kernel level
exploits are fairly rare, especially remote ones).

If you've upgraded services probably the easiest way to ensure they're
loaded with the latest version would be to drop the system to single
user mode then bring it back up to multiuser mode (ala, init 2, init 3).

Stuart

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