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Re: Linux kernel version support policy
- From: Rich Felker <dalias at aerifal dot cx>
- To: "Joseph S. Myers" <joseph at codesourcery dot com>
- Cc: Siddhesh Poyarekar <siddhesh at redhat dot com>, Adam Conrad <adconrad at 0c3 dot net>, Allan McRae <allan at archlinux dot org>, Mike Frysinger <vapier at gentoo dot org>, David Miller <davem at davemloft dot net>, libc-alpha at sourceware dot org, aurel32 at debian dot org
- Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2014 13:16:04 -0500
- Subject: Re: Linux kernel version support policy
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On Wed, Jan 29, 2014 at 02:46:44PM +0000, Joseph S. Myers wrote:
> On Wed, 29 Jan 2014, Siddhesh Poyarekar wrote:
>
> > On Wed, Jan 29, 2014 at 03:20:00AM -0700, Adam Conrad wrote:
> > > On Wed, Jan 29, 2014 at 03:08:05PM +1000, Allan McRae wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Debian: 2.6.32
> > > > Ubuntu: 2.6.32 or 2.6.24 depending on architecture
> > >
> > > This will be 2.6.32 across the board the day we ditch some old 2.6.24
> > > Xen-on-x86 kit in our infrastructure. We chose 2.6.32 intentionally
> > > to be backward compatible with setting up chroots on squeeze, lucid,
> > > and RHEL6. Anything older than that really doesn't seem worth me even
> > > trying to support.
> >
> > RHEL-6 runs the 2.6.32 kernel, but its glibc is built with
> > --enable-kernel=2.6.18.
>
> So, do you have views on:
>
> * general policy (my suggestion is that we default to not supporting
> kernel versions not maintained upstream, unless we believe in a particular
> case that there are important distribution versions using those kernels
> that make it desirable to support using them);
>
> * moving to requiring 2.6.32, the oldest currently-maintained kernel
> series, for glibc 2.20 (release due July 2014)?
While on the one hand I'd like to avoid breaking things for users of
OpenVZ-based hosting providers with outdated kernels, I think I'd
rather see glibc putting pressure on those providers to fix their
outdated, buggy, and likely-insecure kernels. So I'm mildly in favor
of bumping the requirement to 2.6.32.
Rich