Re: Preserving uptime with kexec?

From: Valdis . Kletnieks
Date: Mon Jul 31 2006 - 10:10:35 EST


On Mon, 31 Jul 2006 08:59:13 EDT, Thomas Tuttle said:
> Like many people, I like to brag about how great my uptime is. But like
> many other people, I like to keep my kernel up-to-date with the latest
> and greatest from kernel.org. I recently discovered the magic of kexec,
> which allows me to switch kernels without rebooting for real.
> Unfortunately, kexec resets my uptime when it runs.

The reset of uptime is probably a Good Thing. Consider the case of
a kernel memory leak - you look in /proc/meminfo and find that you've managed
to lose 64 meg of memory to the leak. Where you start looking for the
leak will depend on whether it's 64 meg lost across 4 weeks since the
last boot, or the 30 minutes since the last boot.

(Speaking as somebody who's run into both classes of leaks...)


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