full-disclosure - Security Updates Without Rebooting

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Message-ID: <20051109100142.GD25131@melpomene.jschipper.dynalias.net>
Date: Wed Nov  9 10:01:52 2005
From: j.schipper at math.uu.nl (Joachim Schipper)
Subject: Security Updates Without Rebooting

On Mon, Nov 07, 2005 at 10:42:11PM +0000, Carlos Silva aka|Danger_Man| wrote:
> Hello all,
> 
> 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"?
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Carlos Silva,

If we are talking some *nix, just stop the vulnerable daemon, update,
and start it again. Not very difficult...

Patching the kernel while running is be possible, but hardly practical -
unless you are very, very good. I've never seen it done, but it does
happen in rootkits and is said to be possible in many cases.

(What seems, to me, to be more practical is just to build a modular
Linux kernel and update only the vulnerable module with the most minimal
patch you can find - however, this only works with very modular kernels,
OpenBSD wouldn't be helped much by this. Then again, patching the
OpenBSD kernel isn't required too often...)

		Joachim