Make your system rebootless using Ksplice

Ksplice is a first class tool. It is a great utility for system administrators who are fed up of rebooting their system everytime a critical update comes in. A reboot is required in such cases to keep their systems up to date. This leads to downtime and disruption of services provided by the server. This is where Ksplice comes into play.

If a system is left unpatched after release of a security update, it is in a pretty vulnerable state. According to the Ksplice website Within just six days after the announcement of the Linux sys_prctl vulnerability, many servers had been compromised, including an important server for the Debian distribution.

This is where Ksplice comes in. It will install all the critical updates like regular rebootless updates. Ksplice is free for Ubuntu 9.04. You can download it here. And follow the following instructions to install it.

Installing Ksplice

Once you click the button you will see a dialog box. Select open with Gdebi package installer and click OK. Then an installer will appear, click install package.

Enter the password, to get root access for installation. And you will be prompted to agree for terms of service.

Click forward and after a while you will see Ksplice uptrack manager. It will look something like this..

Installing Updates using Ksplice

Red icons mean that the updates are not installed. Click install all updates and after installation the update manager will look like this

Green icons mean that the updates are installed and your system is up to date. And the icon at the top panel will return back to normal state.

Whenever a new update comes the Ksplice tray icon will be in alert state

So, if you are looking for a rebootless solution for your server, go for Ksplice.