ARM Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life (Terry Pratchett, Jingo)

Mourning Dan Kohn

([Briefs] Nov 2, 2020 15:47 UTC (Mon) (corbet))

The net today carries the sad news that [1]Dan Kohn has passed away . Among other things, Dan played a huge role in the establishment of the Linux Foundation and a number of its initiatives, including the [2]Cloud Native Computing Foundation and [3]LF Public Health . He will be missed.



[1] https://twitter.com/DrOceanJulie/status/1322957062444326919

[2] https://www.cncf.io/

[3] https://www.lfph.io/

Security updates for Monday

([Security] Nov 2, 2020 15:30 UTC (Mon) (ris))

Security updates have been issued by Debian (cimg, junit4, kernel, openldap, qtsvg-opensource-src, spice, spice-gtk, tzdata, and wireshark), Fedora (firefox, java-1.8.0-openjdk, java-11-openjdk, and thunderbird), openSUSE (apache2, binutils, libvirt, lout, pacemaker, pagure, phpMyAdmin, samba, sane-backends, singularity, spice, spice-gtk, thunderbird, nspr, tomcat, virt-bootstrap, and xen), SUSE (graphviz, liblouis, and samba), and Ubuntu (samba).

Kernel prepatch 5.10-rc2

([Kernel] Nov 2, 2020 3:04 UTC (Mon) (corbet))

The [1]second 5.10 kernel prepatch is out for testing. " Despite the size, I don't get the feeling that there's anything really odd going on, and so far the release seems to be going smoothly. But please test, that's how we find problems. "



[1] https://lwn.net/Articles/835774/

Some weekend stable kernel updates

([Kernel] Nov 1, 2020 15:03 UTC (Sun) (corbet))

The [1]5.9.3 , [2]5.8.18 , and [3]5.4.74 stable kernel updates are out; each contains another set of important fixes.



[1] https://lwn.net/Articles/835762/

[2] https://lwn.net/Articles/835763/

[3] https://lwn.net/Articles/835764/

Security updates for Friday

([Security] Oct 30, 2020 13:39 UTC (Fri) (jake))

Security updates have been issued by Debian (dompurify.js, libsndfile, and openjdk-8), Fedora (python2), Mageia (tomcat), openSUSE (lout, pagure, php7, singularity, and tensorflow2), SUSE (graphviz, libvirt, pacemaker, python-Jinja2, samba, spice, spice-gtk, thunderbird and mozilla-nspr, xen, and zstd), and Ubuntu (fastd).

[$] Packaging Kubernetes for Debian

([Distributions] Oct 30, 2020 16:47 UTC (Fri) (corbet))

Linux distributors are in the business of integrating software from multiple sources, packaging the result, and making it available to their users. It has long been true that some projects are easier to package than others. The [1]Debian technical committee (TC) is currently being asked to make a decision in a dispute over how an especially hard-to-package project — [2]Kubernetes — should be handled. Regardless of the eventual outcome, this disagreement clearly shows how the packaging model used by Linux distributors is increasingly mismatched to how software is often developed in the 2020s; what should replace that model is rather less clear, though.



[1] https://www.debian.org/devel/tech-ctte

[2] https://kubernetes.io/

Kernel support for processor undervolting

([Kernel] Nov 2, 2020 16:47 UTC (Mon) (mrybczyn))

Overclocking the processor — running it above its specified maximum frequency to increase performance — is a familiar operation for many readers. Sometimes, however, it is necessary to go the other direction and decrease a processor's operating power point by lowering its voltage to avoid overheating. Recently, Jason Donenfeld submitted a [1]short patch removing a warning emitted by the kernel when user space accesses special processor registers that allow this "undervolting" on x86 processors. It caused a long discussion that might result in a kernel interface to allow users to safely control their processor's voltage.



[1] https://lwn.net/ml/linux-kernel/20200907094843.1949-1-Jason@zx2c4.com/

Seven new stable kernels

([Kernel] Oct 29, 2020 13:57 UTC (Thu) (jake))

Greg Kroah-Hartman has announced the release of seven new stable kernels: [1]5.9.2 , [2]5.8.17 , [3]5.4.73 , [4]4.19.153 , [5]4.14.203 , [6]4.9.241 , and [7]4.4.241 . These are extremely large updates, with important fixes throughout the tree. Users of these kernel series should upgrade.



[1] https://lwn.net/Articles/835559/

[2] https://lwn.net/Articles/835560/

[3] https://lwn.net/Articles/835561/

[4] https://lwn.net/Articles/835562/

[5] https://lwn.net/Articles/835563/

[6] https://lwn.net/Articles/835564/

[7] https://lwn.net/Articles/835565/ Update : [1]4.19.154 was released later because 4.19.153 did not get all of the patches intended for it, as [2]reported by Pavel Machek .



[1] https://lwn.net/Articles/835619/

[2] https://lwn.net/Articles/835620/

LWN.net Weekly Edition for November 5, 2020


Security updates for Thursday

([Security] Oct 29, 2020 13:43 UTC (Thu) (jake))

Security updates have been issued by Debian (linux-4.19), Fedora (tcpreplay, xen, and yubihsm-shell), SUSE (pacemaker), and Ubuntu (gosa and pam-python).

Security updates for Wednesday

([Security] Oct 28, 2020 14:54 UTC (Wed) (ris))

Security updates have been issued by Debian (blueman), Fedora (nodejs), Gentoo (firefox), openSUSE (kleopatra), Oracle (java-1.8.0-openjdk), SUSE (apache2, binutils, firefox, pacemaker, sane-backends, spice, spice-gtk, tomcat, virt-bootstrap, xen, and zeromq), and Ubuntu (ca-certificates, mariadb-10.1, mariadb-10.3, netty, openjdk-8, openjdk-lts, perl, and tomcat6).

[$] Relief for insomniac tracepoints

([Kernel] Oct 29, 2020 17:58 UTC (Thu) (corbet))

The kernel's tracing infrastructure is designed to be fast and to interfere as little as possible with the normal operation of the system. One consequence of this requirement is that the code that runs when a tracepoint is hit cannot sleep; otherwise execution of the tracepoint could add an arbitrary delay to the execution of the real work the kernel should be doing. There are times, though, that the ability to sleep within a tracepoint would be handy, delays notwithstanding. The [1]sleepable tracepoints patch set from Michael Jeanson sets the stage to make it possible for (some) tracepoint handlers to take a nap while performing their tasks — but stops short of completing the job for now.



[1] https://lwn.net/ml/linux-kernel/20201023195352.26269-1-mjeanson@efficios.com/

Security updates for Tuesday

([Security] Oct 27, 2020 15:00 UTC (Tue) (ris))

Security updates have been issued by Debian (thunderbird), Fedora (createrepo_c, dnf-plugins-core, dnf-plugins-extras, librepo, livecd-tools, and pdns-recursor), openSUSE (firefox and mailman), Oracle (firefox), Red Hat (chromium-browser, java-1.8.0-openjdk, and Satellite 6.8), Scientific Linux (java-1.8.0-openjdk), SUSE (libvirt), and Ubuntu (blueman, firefox, mysql-5.7, mysql-8.0, php7.4, and ruby-kramdown).

Fedora 33 released

([Distributions] Oct 27, 2020 14:14 UTC (Tue) (corbet))

The [1]Fedora 33 release is now available in a variety of editions, including the [2]newly promoted IoT edition . " No matter what variant of Fedora you use, you’re getting the latest the open source world has to offer. Following our 'First' foundation, we’ve updated key programming language and system library packages, including Python 3.9, Ruby on Rails 6.0, and Perl 5.32. In Fedora KDE, we’ve followed the work in Fedora 32 Workstation and enabled the EarlyOOM service by default to improve the user experience in low-memory situations. To make the default Fedora experience better, we’ve set nano as the default editor. " A number of the more significant Fedora 33 changes were [3]covered here in June .



[1] https://fedoramagazine.org/announcing-fedora-33/

[2] https://lwn.net/Articles/828966/

[3] https://lwn.net/Articles/824620/

Two address-space-isolation patches get closer

([Kernel] Oct 27, 2020 22:47 UTC (Tue) (corbet))

Address-space isolation is the technique of removing a range of memory from one or more address spaces as a way of preventing accidental or malicious access to that memory. Since the disclosure of the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities, the kernel has used [1]one form of address-space isolation to make kernel memory completely inaccessible to user-space processes, for example. There has been a steady level of interest in using similar techniques to protect memory in other contexts; two patches implementing new isolation mechanisms are getting closer to being ready for merging into the mainline kernel.



[1] https://lwn.net/Articles/741878/

The recurring request for keyword indexing in Python

([Development] Oct 28, 2020 22:19 UTC (Wed) (jake))

Python has keyword arguments for functions that is a useful (and popular) feature; it can make reading the code more clear and eliminate the possibility of passing arguments in the wrong order. Python can also index an object in various ways to refer to a subset or an aspect of the object. Bringing the idea of keywords to indexing would provide a way to get the clarity benefit for indexing operations; doing so has been discussed in Python circles for a long time. Some renewed interest, in the form of lengthy discussions on the python-ideas mailing list and a new Python enhancement proposal (PEP), look like they just might take keyword indexing over the finish line.

Walleij: ARM32 page tables

([Kernel] Oct 26, 2020 16:06 UTC (Mon) (corbet))

Linus Walleij continues his series of blog posts on the 32-bit Arm kernel with [1]this detailed description about how page tables work . " The Linux kernel will act as if 5 levels of page tables exist. This is of course grossly over-engineered for ARM32 which has 2 or 3 levels of page tables, but we need to cater for the rest of the world. One size fits all. In practice, the code is organized such that these page tables 'fold' and we mostly skip over the intermediate translation steps when possible. "



[1] https://people.kernel.org/linusw/arm32-page-tables

Security updates for Monday

([Security] Oct 26, 2020 14:53 UTC (Mon) (ris))

Security updates have been issued by Debian (fastd, freetype, openjdk-11, phpmyadmin, and thunderbird), Fedora (ant, firefox, freetype, kde-partitionmanager, kpmcore, mupdf, python-PyMuPDF, singularity, suricata, and zathura-pdf-mupdf), Mageia (claws-mail, nss, firefox, pdns-recursor, and thunderbird), openSUSE (atftp, chromium, firefox, freetype2, gnutls, hunspell, kleopatra, and opera), Oracle (firefox, java-11-openjdk, and kernel), Red Hat (firefox and kpatch-patch), SUSE (bluez, firefox, glibc, libcdio, rmt-server, and SDL), and Ubuntu (freetype, pam-python, and perl).

Kernel prepatch 5.10-rc1

([Kernel] Oct 26, 2020 3:11 UTC (Mon) (corbet))

Linus has [1]released 5.10-rc1 and closed the merge window for this development cycle. " This looks to be a bigger release than I expected, and while the merge window is smaller than the one for 5.8 was, it's not a *lot* smaller. And 5.8 was our biggest release ever. "



[1] https://lwn.net/Articles/835181/

GDB 10.1 released

([Development] Oct 24, 2020 16:34 UTC (Sat) (corbet))

Version 10.1 of the GDB debugger is out. Changes include support for debugging BPF programs, GDBserver support on the RISC-V architecture, and support for "debuginfod", which is " an HTTP server for distributing ELF/DWARF debugging information as well as source code. "
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He has shown you, o man, what is good. And what does the Lord ask of you,
but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly before your God?