Name: Reboot Without Rebooting: Updating Linux Userspace at the Speed of a Service Restart - Nandakumar Raghavan & Prasanna Kumar T S M, Microsoft
Start: 2026-08-12T16:35:00+0900
End: 2026-08-12T17:05:00+0900

11-12, August 2026
Seoul, South Korea
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Reboot Without Rebooting: Updating Linux Userspace at the Speed of a Service Restart - Nandakumar Raghavan & Prasanna Kumar T S M, Microsoft

Wednesday August 12, 2026 16:35 - 17:05 KST

Orchid 1

What if you could replace your entire OS userspace — binaries, configs, services, even init itself — without ever stopping the kernel? No firmware POST, no hardware re-init, no multi-minute downtime. Just a clean userspace restart in seconds.

That's what soft-reboot (systemctl soft-reboot), implemented in systemd, delivers: a primitive that tears down all of userspace, pivots into a fresh root filesystem, and re-launches PID 1 — while the running kernel stays untouched.

This talk unpacks how soft-reboot works under the hood, why it matters for modern OS update workflows, and how it compares to a traditional reboot and kexec. We'll walk through real production use cases: zero-downtime OS updates, staged fleet rollouts, and rapid recovery from a wedged userspace — without paying the cost of a full boot cycle.

Attendees will leave with a clear mental model of soft-reboot internals, practical guidance on when to choose it over a full reboot or kexec, and concrete patterns for building soft-reboot-aware update pipelines.

If you've ever wished you could ship an OS update as fast as restarting a service, this talk is for you.

Speakers

Nandakumar Raghavan

Senior Software Engineer - Linux Systems Group, Microsoft

Nandakumar works as Senior Software Engineer at Microsoft - Linux Systems Group. He has worked on router board bring up, linux kernel development and user space. He has extensive work experience on MIPS and x86 architecture. He has made several contributions to systemd upstream.

Prasanna Kumar T S M

Senior Software Engineer, Microsoft

Prasanna Kumar is a seasoned Linux kernel engineer, is currently working for Microsoft's Linux Systems Group. He has worked on low level CPU architecture code, board bring up, driver development, file system and related utilities etc. He has contributed to Linux kernel.

Wednesday August 12, 2026 16:35 - 17:05 KST
Orchid 1

Linux

Open Source Summit Korea 2026

Nandakumar Raghavan

Prasanna Kumar T S M

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