Canonical Livepatch now officially supports Arm64, further expanding its security patching automation capabilities. For the first time, Ubuntu on an Arm64 machine can apply critical kernel updates, without service interruption or rebooting. Starting with Ubuntu Core 26 for Arm64, and for Ubuntu Core 20 and onwards for AMD64 machines, a wi […]

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Canonical Livepatch now supports Arm64 architecture, enabling live kernel patching without reboots or service interruption on Ubuntu 26.04 LTS and Ubuntu Core 26. The announcement details the multi-year technical journey from a 2023 gap analysis through upstream kernel contributions, toolchain improvements (GCC, objdump, Kpatch), and dedicated Arm64 build farm infrastructure. Key challenges included implementing reliable kernel stack traces (CONFIG_HAVE_RELIABLE_STACKTRACE) for Arm64 and building architecture-specific regression test suites. The feature benefits organizations managing edge devices and Arm-based cloud servers, and supports Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) compliance.

Canonical announces live kernel patching for Arm64

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