Call for testing: kernel 4.14.13-200.fc26 / 4.14.13-300.fc27 - initial Spectre mitigations

[Adam Williamson]

Hi folks!

Kernel updates for Fedora 26 and Fedora 27 are now available with
initial mitigations for both Spectre variants. As the update
description states:

"This is also the first update to contain some spectre mitigations.
Some patches for variant 1 as well as the initial retpoline build for
variant 2. These variant 2 mitigations will improve with further
patches, and once compiler support is improved."

As for the Meltdown fix, the testing we're primarily interested here is
just to boot the kernel and verify that it doesn't break anything
unexpected. If the new kernel boots and works OK for you, please leave
positive feedback.

Thanks very much!

For extra credit, the kernel maintainers are also interested in seeing
some data from AMD users. They're interested in at least this output:

# dmesg | grep Spectre
# grep spectre /proc/cpuinfo

if you have an AMD CPU, it'd be great if you can post the output of
those commands on your system as a Bodhi comment.

F26: https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2018-e6fe35524d
F27: https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2018-21a7ad920c

Both updates are currently 'pending' and have not yet reached updates-
testing; keen testers can get the package from Koji and update as I
suggested before: download the new versions of the important packages
(at least kernel, kernel-core, and kernel-modules) and run 'dnf update
kernel*.rpm'. Otherwise, the packages should reach the mirrors in a few
hours.
-- 
Adam Williamson
Fedora QA Community Monkey
IRC: adamw | Twitter: AdamW_Fedora | XMPP: adamw AT happyassassin . net
http://www.happyassassin.net

[Adam Williamson]

On Thu, 2018-01-11 at 13:55 -0800, Adam Williamson wrote:
>  Hi folks!
>  
>  Kernel updates for Fedora 26 and Fedora 27 are now available with
>  initial mitigations for both Spectre variants. As the update
>  description states:
>  
>  "This is also the first update to contain some spectre mitigations.
>  Some patches for variant 1 as well as the initial retpoline build for
>  variant 2. These variant 2 mitigations will improve with further
>  patches, and once compiler support is improved."
>  
>  As for the Meltdown fix, the testing we're primarily interested here is
>  just to boot the kernel and verify that it doesn't break anything
>  unexpected. If the new kernel boots and works OK for you, please leave
>  positive feedback.
>  
>  Thanks very much!
>  
>  For extra credit, the kernel maintainers are also interested in seeing
>  some data from AMD users. They're interested in at least this output:
>  
>  # dmesg | grep Spectre
>  # grep spectre /proc/cpuinfo
>  
>  if you have an AMD CPU, it'd be great if you can post the output of
>  those commands on your system as a Bodhi comment.
>  
>  F26: https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2018-e6fe35524d
>  F27: https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2018-21a7ad920c 
...sigh, and *once again*, just as I sent out the call for testing, the
updates went into 'locked' state, which due to a bug in Bodhi at
present means you can't comment on them until they're unlocked again.

Sorry about that! Once the updates complete push to testing, you'll be
able to comment on them again. And Randy promises me this will be fixed
in Bodhi soon.
-- 
Adam Williamson
Fedora QA Community Monkey
IRC: adamw | Twitter: AdamW_Fedora | XMPP: adamw AT happyassassin . net
http://www.happyassassin.net

[Adam Williamson]

On Thu, 2018-01-11 at 13:55 -0800, Adam Williamson wrote:
>  Hi folks!
>  
>  Kernel updates for Fedora 26 and Fedora 27 are now available with
>  initial mitigations for both Spectre variants. As the update
>  description states:
>  
>  "This is also the first update to contain some spectre mitigations.
>  Some patches for variant 1 as well as the initial retpoline build for
>  variant 2. These variant 2 mitigations will improve with further
>  patches, and once compiler support is improved."
>  
>  As for the Meltdown fix, the testing we're primarily interested here is
>  just to boot the kernel and verify that it doesn't break anything
>  unexpected. If the new kernel boots and works OK for you, please leave
>  positive feedback.
>  
>  Thanks very much!
>  
>  For extra credit, the kernel maintainers are also interested in seeing
>  some data from AMD users. They're interested in at least this output:
>  
>  # dmesg | grep Spectre
>  # grep spectre /proc/cpuinfo
>  
>  if you have an AMD CPU, it'd be great if you can post the output of
>  those commands on your system as a Bodhi comment.
>  
>  F26: https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2018-e6fe35524d
>  F27: https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2018-21a7ad920c 
Update: the F27 update is now stable; not sure if the kernel team wants
more debug output from AMD users, but it can't hurt, so do feel free to
go ahead if you have an AMD CPU and haven't yet.

The F26 update still needs more karma, and should now be in updates-
testing. Can folks on F26 please install the update and provide
positive feedback if it works? Thanks!
-- 
Adam Williamson
Fedora QA Community Monkey
IRC: adamw | Twitter: AdamW_Fedora | XMPP: adamw AT happyassassin . net
http://www.happyassassin.net