Re: [PATCH 0/5] i387: stable kernel backport

Willy Tarreau
2012-02-23T22:52:36Z

On Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 02:48:51PM -0800, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> On 02/23/2012 02:38 PM, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> >
> > You'd still need an x86-32 machine to test on, because x86-64 was
> > immune to this issue.
> >
> > But yeah, the impact of this seems to be small enough that for older
> > kernels (which are likely used on older systems for maintenance
> > anyway) disabling AES-NI on x86-32 really might be the way to go.
> >
>
> That would really suck for users of encrypted hard disks.

Peter, do you really think there are that many ? I think I only saw
AES-NI on recent 64-bit capable chips, and it's been a while that
users have been installing 64-bit distros on such machines. Note that
I'm not advocating for breaking existing setups, just that I'm surprized
by this combination (aes-ni + 32-bit).

Willy