linux-kernel - Re: [v2.6.26] what's brewing in x86.git for v2.6.26

lists.openwall.net		lists / announce owl-users owl-dev john-users john-dev passwdqc-users yescrypt popa3d-users / oss-security kernel-hardening musl sabotage tlsify passwords / crypt-dev xvendor / Bugtraq Full-Disclosure linux-kernel linux-netdev linux-ext4 linux-hardening linux-cve-announce PHC
Open Source and information security mailing list archives

Hash Suite: Windows password security audit tool. GUI, reports in PDF.

[<prev] [next>] [<thread-prev] [thread-next>] [day] [month] [year] [list]

Message-Id: <20080417002552.5742ad65.akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Date:	Thu, 17 Apr 2008 00:25:52 -0700
From:	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>
To:	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...e.hu>
Cc:	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>
Subject: Re: [v2.6.26] what's brewing in x86.git for v2.6.26

On Wed, 16 Apr 2008 22:23:38 +0200 Ingo Molnar <mingo@...e.hu> wrote:

> 
> what's brewing in x86.git for v2.6.26?

How much of this has not been in -mm?

How much of this has not been in linux-next?

> too many topics to list them all - there are 884 patches from 74 authors 
> at the moment.
> 
> a few highlights:
> 
>  - 4096 CPUs support. (Yes, such big boxes exist, and they run Linux.)
> 
>  - mmiotrace feature: trace accesses to hw components to help figure out 
>    how they are programmed.
> 
>  - kmemcheck feature: Valgrind for the native Linux kernel in essence - 
>    detects access to uninitialized memory.
> 
>  - ftrace plugin for sysprof

sysprof is crap.

>  - fixed StackProtector security feature (these fixes were too intrusive 
>    for v2.6.25)
> 
>  - lazy FPU allocation/speedup - offloaded/large FPU/SSE state support
> 
>  - SMP-boot, mpparse, DMA ops unification
> 
>  - PAT support - first step towards phasing out MTRR's for cache 
>    attribute control
> 
>  - enable GBPAGES - faster TLB misses on CPUs that support it
> 
>  - debug helper: view kernel pagetable layout via debugfs

Needs documentation.

>       x86: introduce /dev/mem restrictions with a config option

This should be runtime-settable, not build-time settable.

> ...
>
> Randy Dunlap (2):
> ...
>       linux-next: Tree for April 10 (arch/x86)

borked patch title.

> Soren Sandmann (1):
>       x86: add the debugfs interface for the sysprof tool

There were serious objections that this is weaker than and duplicative of
oprofile which were not adequately addressed.

Also, I (and apparently only I) actually reviewed the implementation and
found it to be riddled with bugs and shortcomings.  afacit this was
completely ignored and you propose to merge it anwyay?


I obviously don't have time to go through it all, but I'm afraid I cannot
be very confident in it.  All I can say is "the parts which have been in
-mm seem to compile and run".  A quick grep indicates that only 644 of
these 884 patches are in -mm.  And a lot of them only turned up a week or
two ago.
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@...r.kernel.org
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/