Is it possible to have a hotfix at runtime with executable memory heaps and a distributed system?

Question

I've been looking over a few tutorials for JIT and allocating heaps of executable memory at runtime. This is mainly a conceptual question, so please correct me if I got something wrong.

If I understand it correctly, a JIT takes advantage of a runtime interpreter/compiler that outputs native or executable code and, if native binary, places it in an executable code heap in memory, which is OS-specific (e.g. VirtualAlloc() for Windows, mmap() for Linux).

Additionally, some languages like Erlang can have a distributed system such that each part is separated from each other, meaning that if one fails, the others can account for such a case in a modular way, meaning that modules can also be switched in and out at will if managed correctly without disturbing overall execution.

With a runtime compiler or some sort of code delivery mechanism, wouldn't it be feasible to load code at runtime arbitrarily to replace modules of code that could be updated?

Example

Say I have a sort(T, T) function that operates on T or T. Now, suppose I have a merge_sort(T,T) function that I have loaded at runtime. If I implement a sort of ledger or register system such that users of the first sort(T,T) can reassign themselves to use the new merge_sort(T,T) function and detect when all users have adjusted themselves, I should then be able to deallocate and delete sort(T,T) from memory.

This basically sounds a lot like a JIT, but the attractive part, to me, was the aspect where you can swap out code arbitrarily at runtime for modules. That way, while a system is not under a full load such that each module is being used, modules could be automated to switch to new code, if needed, and etc. Theoretically, wouldn't this be a way to implement patches such that a user who uses a program should never have to "restart" the program if the program can swap out code silently in the individual modules? I'd imagine much larger distributed systems can make use of this, but what about smaller ones?

Answer 1

Additionally, some languages like Erlang can have a distributed system such that each part is separated from each other, meaning that if one fails, the others can account for such a case in a modular way, meaning that modules can also be switched in and out at will if managed correctly without disturbing overall execution.

You're describing how to make a fault-tolerant system which is entirely different from replacing code at run-time (known at Dynamic Software Update or DSU). Indeed, in Erlang, you can have one process monitoring other processes and if one fails, it will migrate the work to another process to keep the system running as expected. Note that DSU is not used to implement fault-tolerance. They are different features with different purposes.

Say I have a sort(T, T) function that operates on T or T. Now, suppose I have a merge_sort(T,T) function that I have loaded at runtime. If I implement a sort of ledger or register system such that users of the first sort(T,T) can reassign themselves to use the new merge_sort(T,T) function and detect when all users have adjusted themselves, I should then be able to deallocate and delete sort(T,T) from memory.

This is called DSU and is used to be able to do any of the following tasks without the need to take the system down:

• Fix one or more bugs in a piece of code.
• Patch security holes.
• Employ a more efficient code.
• Deploy new features.

Therefore, any app or system can use DSU so that it can perform these tasks without requiring a restart.

Erlang enables you to perform DSU in addition to facilitating fault-tolerance as discussed above. For more information, refer to this Erlang write paper.

There are numerous ways to implement DSU. Since you're interested in JIT compilers and assuming that by "JIT compiler" you mean the component that not only compiles IL code but also allocates executable memory and patches function calls with binary code addresses, I'll discuss how to implement DSU in JIT environments. The JIT compiler has to support the following two features:

• The ability to obtain or create new binary code at run-time. If you have IL code, no need to allocate executable memory yet since it has to be compiled.
• The ability to replace a piece of IL code (which might have already been JITted) or binary code with the new piece of code.

Clearly, with these two features, you can perform DSU on a single function. Swapping a whole module or library requires swapping all the functions and global variables exported by that module.