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Dynamic Software Updating for C

Practical Dynamic Software Updating for C

"We compile programs specially so that they can be dynamically patched, and generate most of a dynamic patch automatically. Ginseng performs a series of analyses that when combined with some simple runtime support ensure that an update will not violate type-safety while guaranteeing that data is kept up-to-date. We have used Ginseng to construct and dynamically apply patches to three substantial open-source server programs—Very Secure FTP daemon, OpenSSH sshd daemon, and GNU Zebra. In total, we dynamically patched each program with three years’ worth of releases."

By Isaac Gouy at 2006-04-21 04:23 | LtU Forum | previous forum topic | next forum topic | other blogs | 7350 reads

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Cool

Although I don't know if this will find any real use, I am impressed by how little the source code, footprint and performance penalties are.

By Koray Can at Sun, 2006-04-23 02:21 | login or register to post comments

why not?

Why Neptune? gives support for dynamic software update as part of the rationale behind the language design.

Why don't you think providing this functionality for C programs will find use?

By Isaac Gouy at Sun, 2006-04-23 16:59 | login or register to post comments

RIP Neptune

"...you shouldn't expect an open source version of neptune to be released any time soon -- in fact, don't expect any version to be released at all."
Monday, July 03, 2006 Hummus and Magnets

By Isaac Gouy at Tue, 2006-07-04 19:58 | login or register to post comments

Yes indeed

You're right; there's no reason why not, except possibly inertia.

By Koray Can at Mon, 2006-04-24 01:16 | login or register to post comments