Orphaned VMs: Running VMs Uninterrupted While Host Kernel Is Offline For Reboots/Updates

Google engineer Pasha Tatashin has proposed 'Orphaned VMs,' an early-stage RFC patch series (46 patches) enabling virtual machines to keep executing guest instructions uninterrupted while the host Linux kernel reboots for updates. The approach uses the Live Update Orchestrator (LUO) alongside a new 'Caretaker' bare-metal interpose layer that preserves vCPU state in RAM, shields physical CPUs from reset signals, and handles timekeeping drift and stray interrupts during the reboot gap. Tested on Intel, AMD, and Arm server processors, the work is not production ready and will be discussed further at the Linux Plumbers Conference in Prague.

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