Linux Weekly News

Stable kernel 4.19.110 has been released. "This fixes a problem in 4.19.109 in the KVM subsystem. If you use KVM, you are strongly encouraged to upgrade. If not, no big deal, you can ignore this release."

Security updates have been issued by Debian (graphicsmagick, qemu, and slurm-llnl), Fedora (ansible, couchdb, mediawiki, and python3-typed_ast), Gentoo (atftp, curl, file, gdb, git, gst-plugins-base, icu, libarchive, libgcrypt, libjpeg-turbo, libssh, libvirt, musl, nfdump, ppp, python, ruby-openid, runc, sqlite, squid, sudo, SVG Salamander, systemd, thunderbird, tiff, and webkit-gtk), Mageia (firefox, kernel, and thunderbird), openSUSE (firefox, librsvg, php7, and tomcat), Red Hat (firefox), Slackware (thunderbird), and SUSE (firefox, kernel, salt, and wireshark).

Version 4.4 of The Amnesic Incognito Live System (or Tails) has been released. It has fixed a bunch of security vulnerabilities in Tails 4.3; users are advised to "upgrade as soon as possible". Tails 4.4 brings new versions of the Tor Browser (9.0.6), Thunderbird (68.5.0), and the Linux kernel (5.4.19). It also fixes some problems with WiFi. Tails is a Linux distribution that runs from removable media; it is focused on privacy, security, and anonymity.

The 5.6-rc6 kernel prepatch has been released. "Diffstat looks normal, and the number of commits is right in the middle of the usual range too. And I don't think any of the commits look all that strange either - it's all pretty small."

The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is a core component of the world-wide web. Over its evolution it has added features, including encryption, but time has revealed its limitations and those of the whole protocol stack. At FOSDEM 2020, Daniel Stenberg delivered a talk about a new version of the protocol called HTTP/3. It is under development and includes some big changes under the hood. There is no more TCP, for example; a new transport protocol called QUIC is expected to improve performance and allow new features.

Wired has an article on an open-source tool that is being used to track strains of Covid-19 throughout the world. "In the case of the Seattle area teenager, genetic data about his strain of Covid-19 was uploaded to Gisaid, a platform for sharing genomic data. Then researchers at Nextstrain made the connection with the earlier patient. Nextstrain is an open source application that tracks the evolution of viruses and bacteria, including Covid-19, Ebola, and lesser-known outbreaks such as Enterovirus D68 using data sourced largely from Gisaid. Hodcroft and other researchers involved with the project analyze the data shared on Gisaid for mutations and visualize the results. That’s how the team was able to spot the connection between the two Covid-19 cases in Washington."

Psycopg is the database adapter used by most Python programs needing to work with the PostgreSQL database manager. In this blog post, psycopg maintainer Daniele Varrazzo looks forward to the next major version. "There is a chance now to rethink how thick the C libpq wrapper should be. We can reduce the C implementation to a minimal wrapper around the libpq (replaceable by a CFFI Python wrapper if compiling C is not available on the client), using it as a foundation to build a familiar DBAPI blocking interface. A blocking behaviour is not bad in itself: it allows to write most of the programs, the ones which don't need crazy concurrency, in a simple and familiar paradigm; the async layer would be available under the hood to squeeze the best performance in programs who have embraced an asynchronous pattern and framework."

Security updates have been issued by Arch Linux (firefox, golang-golang-x-crypto, kernel, mbedtls, ppp, and python-django), Debian (slirp and yubikey-val), Fedora (firefox, java-1.8.0-openjdk-aarch32, mbedtls, monit, seamonkey, sympa, and zsh), Gentoo (chromium, e2fsprogs, firefox, groovy, postgresql, rabbitmq-c, ruby, and vim), Mageia (ppp), openSUSE (kernel), and SUSE (glibc, kernel, openstack-manila, php5, and squid).

As expected, the 5.5.9, 5.4.25, 4.19.109, 4.14.173, 4.9.216, and 4.4.216 stable kernels have all been released; each contains another set of important fixes.

Back in 2017, Waiman Long posted a patch set placing limits on the number of "negative dentries" stored by the kernel. The better part of three years later, that work continues with, seemingly, no better prospects for getting into the mainline. It would be understandable, though, if many people out there don't really know what negative dentries are or why kernel developers care about them. That, at least, can be fixed, even if the underlying problem seems to be more difficult.

Security updates have been issued by CentOS (kernel), Debian (dojo, firefox-esr, sleuthkit, and wpa), Fedora (cacti, cacti-spine, and python-psutil), Oracle (kernel), Red Hat (kernel), Scientific Linux (kernel), SUSE (ardana-ansible, ardana-cinder, ardana-cobbler, ardana-db, ardana-horizon, ardana-input-model, ardana-monasca, ardana-mq, ardana-nova, ardana-octavia, ardana-osconfig, ardana-tempest, ardana-tls, crowbar-core, crowbar-ha, crowbar-openstack, crowbar-ui, keepalived, openstack-barbican, openstack-ceilometer, openstack-cinder, openstack-dashboard, openstack-dashboard-theme-SUSE, openstack-designate, openstack-heat, openstack-horizon-plugin-designate-ui, openstack-horizon-plugin-ironic-ui, openstack-horizon-plugin-neutron-lbaas-ui, openstack-horizon-plugin-octavia-ui, openstack-ironic, openstack-ironic-python-agent, openstack-keystone, openstack-magnum, openstack-monasca-agent, openstack-neutron, openstack-neutron-fwaas, openstack-neutron-gbp, openstack-neutron-vpnaas, openstack-nova, openstack-octavia, openstack-octavia-amphora-image, openstack-sahara, openstack-swift, python-amqp, python-ironic-lib, python-keystoneauth1, python-keystoneclient, python-keystonemiddleware, python-ovs, supportutils-plugin-suse-openstack-cloud, rubygem-crowbar-client, rubygem-puma, venv-openstack-horizon, ardana-cinder, ardana-cobbler, ardana-designate, ardana-extensions-example, ardana-extensions-nsx, ardana-glance, ardana-heat, ardana-input-model, ardana-ironic, ardana-keystone, ardana-logging, ardana-monasca, ardana-monasca-transform, ardana-mq, ardana-neutron, ardana-nova, ardana-octavia, ardana-osconfig, ardana-tempest, crowbar-core, crowbar-ha, crowbar-openstack, crowbar-ui, keepalived, mariadb, openstack-cinder, openstack-dashboard, openstack-dashboard-theme-SUSE, openstack-heat, openstack-heat-templates, openstack-horizon-plugin-designate-ui, openstack-horizon-plugin-neutron-lbaas-ui, openstack-ironic, openstack-keystone, openstack-monasca-agent, openstack-neutron, openstack-neutron-gbp, openstack-neutron-vsphere, openstack-nova, openstack-octavia, openstack-octavia-amphora-image, openstack-resource-agents, openstack-sahara, openstack-trove, python-cinderlm, python-congressclient, python-designateclient, python-ironic-lib, python-ne tworking-cisco, python-osc-lib, python-oslo.context, python-oslo.rootwrap, python-oslo.serialization, python-oslo.service, python-stevedore, python-taskflow, rubygem-crowbar-client, rubygem-pumavenv-openstack-swift, firefox, ipmitool, kernel, and php72), and Ubuntu (firefox).

The LWN.net Weekly Edition for March 12, 2020 is available.

A recent message to the debian-project mailing list by Debian project leader (DPL) Sam Hartman is about a proposal to moderate the mailing list. There have been repeated attacks on various project members and the distribution itself posted to the list over the last few years, many from sock-puppet, throwaway email accounts, which spawned a recent discussion on the debian-private mailing list; Hartman was summarizing that discussion for those who are not on the private list. But the problems on debian-project (and other Debian public lists) are kind of just the tip of the iceberg; there is an ongoing, persistent effort to roil the distribution and its community.

Version 3.36 of the GNOME desktop environment is out. "This release brings a new lock screen and a new app for managing shell extensions, among other things. Once again, the shell has received many performance improvements. Improvements to core GNOME applications include better support for metered networks and parental controls in GNOME Software, a new look for the initial setup assistant, a redesigned GNOME Clocks, and many more." See the release notes for details and screenshots.

For those who are interested in the details of graphics synchronization: Jason Ekstrand describes in detail the value of explicit synchronization, the reason why we can't have it now, and a proposal for eventually making it possible to go explicit. "Explicit synchronization is the future of graphics and media. At least, that seems to be the consensus among all the graphics people I've talked to. I had a chat with one of the lead Android graphics engineers recently who told me that doing explicit sync from the start was one of the best engineering decisions Android ever made. It's also the direction being taken by more modern APIs such as Vulkan."

Security updates have been issued by CentOS (qemu-kvm and sudo), Debian (chromium), Mageia (gpac, libseccomp, and tomcat), openSUSE (gd and postgresql10), Oracle (qemu-kvm), Red Hat (chromium-browser), Scientific Linux (qemu-kvm), Slackware (firefox), and SUSE (ipmitool, java-1_7_0-openjdk, librsvg, and tomcat).

The Let's Encrypt project has made real strides in helping to ensure that every web site can use the encrypted HTTPS protocol; it has provided TLS certificates at no charge that are accepted by most or all web browsers. Free certificates accepted by the browsers are something that was difficult to find prior to the advent of the project in 2014; as of the end of February, the project has issued over a billion certificates. But a bug that was recently found in the handling of Certificate Authority Authorization (CAA) by the project put roughly 2.6% of the active certificates—roughly three million—at risk of immediate revocation. As might be expected, that caused a bit of panic in some quarters, but it turned out that the worst outcome was largely averted.

The latest release of Firefox features some login management improvements, the ability to add custom sites to the Facebook Container, better privacy for web voice and video calls, and better add-on management. See the release notes for more information.

Security updates have been issued by Debian (libvpx and network-manager-ssh), Fedora (cacti, cacti-spine, and podman), openSUSE (chromium and python-bleach), Oracle (curl), Red Hat (ansible and qemu-kvm), SUSE (gd, ipmitool, and php7), and Ubuntu (runc and sqlite3).

The Linux development community is spread out over the planet and interacts primarily through email and online systems. It is widely felt, though, that there is great value in getting people together in person occasionally to talk about current issues and get to know each other as people. This year, though, the coronavirus pandemic is disrupting the conference schedule to an extent that won't be known for some time. But there are longer-term concerns as well, to the point that the head organizer for one of the kernel community's most successful events is questioning whether it should continue to exist.