diff --git a/README b/README index a48af438b..6059be4f9 100644 --- a/README +++ b/README @@ -2,6 +2,16 @@ README for kpatch ==================== +OVERVIEW + +kpatch is a tool for the generation and application of kernel +modules that patch a running Linux kernel while in operation, +without requiring a reboot. This is very valuable in cases +where critical workloads, which do not have high availability via +scale-out, run on a single machine and are very downtime +sensitive or require a heavyweight approval process and +notification of workload users in the event of downtime. + LICENSE kpatch is under the GPLv2 license. @@ -42,7 +52,7 @@ The specific commit is 88ad5ddb71bd1fa8ed043a840157ebf23c0057b3. git://git.fedorahosted.org/git/elfutils.git -OVERVIEW +HOWTO An example script for automating the hotfix module generation is in scripts/kpatch-build. The script is written for Fedora but should @@ -68,3 +78,13 @@ The primary steps in the hotfix module generation process are: - Generate the hotfix kernel module - Use tools/link-vmlinux-syms to hardcode non-exported kernel symbols into the symbol table of the hotfix kernel module + +DEMONSTRATION + +A demonstration of kpatch is available on Youtube: + +http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeSmG-XirC4 + +This demonstration completes each step in the HOWTO section in a manual +fashion. However, from a end-user perspective, most of these steps will +be hidden away in scripts (eventually).