Linux 3.14 To Support EFI Kexec Capability

Written by Michael Larabel in Linux Kernel on 20 January 2014 at 01:05 PM EST. 2 Comments
LINUX KERNEL
Kexec will be supported on EFI-based systems with the Linux 3.14 kernel that just officially entered development this morning.

Besides sending in the scheduler changes for Linux 3.14 that include finally landing SCHED_DEADLINE, Ingo Molnar sent in the x86 EFI changes for the 3.14 kernel. With these EFI changes for the Linux 3.14 kernel is now support for using kexec on EFI-running systems.

Kexec is the Linux feature that effectively allows booting a new Linux kernel over an existing Linux kernel that's presently running. Kexec is mostly used by those wishing to minimize downtime as a full reboot isn't needed to upgrade to a new Linux kernel.

Last year we wrote about Kexec breaking Secure Boot and how its security can be easily defeated while now comes the mainline support for using this mechanism from such systems.

The x86 EFI changes for Linux 3.14 can be found via the Git pull request.
2 Comments
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Michael Larabel is the principal author of Phoronix.com and founded the site in 2004 with a focus on enriching the Linux hardware experience. Michael has written more than 20,000 articles covering the state of Linux hardware support, Linux performance, graphics drivers, and other topics. Michael is also the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org automated benchmarking software. He can be followed via Twitter, LinkedIn, or contacted via MichaelLarabel.com.

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