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From: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
To: Avi Kivity <avi@scylladb.com>
Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, akpm@linux-foundation.org,
	torvalds@linux-foundation.org, stable@vger.kernel.org,
	lwn@lwn.net, jslaby@suse.cz
Subject: Re: Linux 4.9.256
Date: Mon, 8 Feb 2021 17:31:31 +0100	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <YCFnY/OAW4E/wUoh@kroah.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <23a28990-c465-f813-52a4-f7f3db007f9d@scylladb.com>

On Mon, Feb 08, 2021 at 05:50:21PM +0200, Avi Kivity wrote:
> On 05/02/2021 16.26, Greg Kroah-Hartman wrote:
> > I'm announcing the release of the 4.9.256 kernel.
> > 
> > This, and the 4.4.256 release are a little bit "different" than normal.
> > 
> > This contains only 1 patch, just the version bump from .255 to .256 which ends
> > up causing the userspace-visable LINUX_VERSION_CODE to behave a bit differently
> > than normal due to the "overflow".
> > 
> > With this release, KERNEL_VERSION(4, 9, 256) is the same as KERNEL_VERSION(4, 10, 0).
> 
> 
> I think this is a bad idea. Many kernel features can only be discovered by
> checking the kernel version. If a feature was introduced in 4.10, then an
> application can be tricked into thinking a 4.9 kernel has it.
> 
> 
> IMO, better to stop LINUX_VERSION_CODE at 255 and introduce a
> LINUX_VERSION_CODE_IMPROVED that has more bits for patchlevel.

We are going to stop LINUX_VERSION_CODE at 255 now, see the posted
patches from Sasha, I think we are now ok.

thanks,

greg k-h

  reply	other threads:[~2021-02-08 16:32 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 10+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2021-02-05 14:26 Linux 4.9.256 Greg Kroah-Hartman
2021-02-05 14:26 ` Greg Kroah-Hartman
2021-02-08 12:57 ` Florian Weimer
2021-02-08 13:03   ` Greg Kroah-Hartman
2021-02-08 15:50 ` Avi Kivity
2021-02-08 16:31   ` Greg Kroah-Hartman [this message]
2021-02-08 18:57   ` Sasha Levin
2021-02-09  8:53     ` Avi Kivity
2021-02-11 10:48 ` LINUX_VERSION_CODE overflow (was: Re: Linux 4.9.256) Florian Weimer
2021-02-11 12:58   ` Greg Kroah-Hartman

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