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Linux Kernel 2.4.5 Released
John Jasen writes: "Join the kernel of the month club! Order yours now!" See the Changelog, I would link to the mirrors but I doubt they're updated yet, so just head to kernel.org.
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Upgrade to Slackware-current (pre-7.2) and 2.4.4 on the kernel.
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WolfSkunks for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.keenspace.com";
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# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
All the major distros are now including openssl/openssh standard (Red Hat, Mandrake, etc.). Why not include the full crypto support for loop devices and the like? Make it an option in the setup to create secure, passphrase mounted filesystesm using blowfish, AES, IDEA, cast128, etc.?
1. go back to linux 2.4.3 (2.4.4 has serious problems)
2. wait for an official freeswan update, http://www.freeswan.org/
3. Try the bleeding-edge snapshots from freeswan.
(BTW, Freeswan adds IPSec to Linux)
Service Packs, I believe, contain fixes for a ton of different programs and such. Since this is exclusively the kernel that is getting updated, it's not really a "pack".
The point about not changing things that work is still valid, although in this case, it's only changing a single thing; it won't make all of your software behave differently.
Non-executable stacks can still be exploited, but the exploits that are easy to write and work on most machine won't work. While it does give you a false sense of security, it means that someone searching for a machine to exploit will probably move on. Of course, if everyone used it, attackers would get around it, but it's helpful for now.
I would. For me, the turning point was 2.4.4. We had a few stability issues with earlier 2.4 kernels, but 2.4.4 has been rock solid. That's not to say I'd rush out and upgrade a perfectly functioning 2.2 server farm, but if I was building one from scratch, it'd be 2.4 all the way.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
Erm, I'm using an Epson 1240U USB scanner (and a USB mouse, for that matter) on my FreeBSD box. I'm also printing to a Winprinter (Epson Color Stylus 440). All this on a 4.3-STABLE installation, meaning that I'm running a standard, non-developmental system.
I assure you that FreeBSD's hardware support is not nearly as dire as you might think.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
As a minor nit real time kernels do not require kernel pre-emption. The require a bounded maximum interrupt latency time. In theory the bound can even be high (100+ms, or hours even). In practice the bound has to be low just like you said. In practice kernel pre-emption is the simplest way to do it (one could also use a true micro kernel that only passes messages, and does that really fast, making all of the "real work" done in premptable user level code).
There is also the difference between hard and soft real time. Soft real time like a video game can't handle going above the stated latency very much or the animation will stutter and the user will become displeased and play a different game, but it can handle once in a while blowing the stated latency. Hard real time can't handle missing the promised latency, a computerized fuel injector might be a good example of this. If it misses, even just once it could inject fuel at the wrong time, and might blow out a delicate gasket and cause $1000 of damage to your engine (this may also be a bad example, I'm not sure how tight the timings really are for CFJ).
(2) Disksuite is a free Volume Manager that does various levels of RAID.
;)
/dev/md instances into the ramdisk /dev, insmodding md, raid1 and reiser, mounting the partitions to mirror, chrooting to that mntpoint, editing lilo.conf (btw that's the LATEST lilo with md bootsector support) and /sbin/lilo), BE SURE to specify your md=X,/dev/hdeX,/dev/hdgX for your root drive in your kernel append for your mdX mirror label.
;)
However, it requires a lot more legwork.
You pretty much have to slice and dice your HDDs identically (and have identical HDDs in the normal case). Thus, you are still limited to 7 partitions (minus some for metadbs of course) within a "volume".
Also, you only get concatenation when you want to increase filesystem sizes, and fairly dumb concatenation at that. And IIRC if you want to concat you have to take the filesystem offline.
Disksuite is nice for small systems and root/boot/swap mirrors. Much nicer IMHO than setting up similar service (converting a single disk R/B/S system into a mirrored one) in Linux using md. I just did both on separate boxes in the last week, and I am still cringing from the md mirror "procedure" (though it did remind me that I actually don't suck
A true LVM beats DS up and down the square. Many flavors of Unix come standard with LVM for "free" (though you usually have to license the OS, and Sun now beers it away up to 8 CPUs) and IMHO it's about time for Sun to give it away as well, whether they license Veritas or port/write another solution.
ps: when you've got your kernel installed into the boot sector and you've gotten your / to start mirroring (by in my case booting from rescue cdrom, copying over the
It's days like that you don't feel overpaid.
Your Working Boy,
- Otis (GAIM: OtisWild)
FYI -
The mirrors are updated !
I have tried the mirrors at
version 2.4.5 is now available at
ftp://ftp.no.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.4/
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Even if they're not up the instant you type, they might well be a minute later, and certainly will be by the time most people get to read your article later in the day. It would help kernel.org to not get slashdotted.
This ``probably not updated'' rubbish just doesn't cut it, either. How long would it take you to check? In seconds? Whatever happened to responsible reporting, the kind so often bemoaned on his very site for its lack?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
- Alan Cox's Patches - Nice!
- Real Time Scheduler - Aside from making Linux a RTOS, it improves app performance!
- GetRewted - Similar to the Openwall pacthes for 2.2.X - NonExec stack, improved filesystem security, stealth networking, Trusted Path Execution
My personal box runs all but GetRewted. My server will run them all very soon. Enjoy!900K vs 14M sure makes sense if you're on a modem as many of us still are, as well as not screwing kernel.org on their bandwidth costs.
Get kernel patches here: http://www.bzimage.org/
Really? I've been following this on lkml and up to yesterday it seemed people are still reporting VM problems under heavy swap.
Admittedly the last one I've tried personally was 2.4.4-ac8, which started killing pieces of KDE when I was simulataneously recompiling the kernel and Qt!
Frequently there are updated/new device drivers. In the cases of .3, .4 and .5 the big one would be lots of additions/changes/fixes to various things USB.
Aside from that, if you use any of the hardware that has been updated/changed (I have an AIC7xxx controller) or use ReiserFS (there are several minor patches/updates/fixes to this).
But you are right -- if it ain't broke, don't fix it. I can make strong arguments for using 2.2.19 instead. On several machines at my last job they are still running (happily) 2.2.x kernels. [I suggested to the new SysAdmin to update to 2.2.19 due to security.] I wouldn't recommend an upgrade beyond that 'cause they don't need anything or gain significant advantage with 2.4.x.
--
Charles E. Hill
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Once the dev kernel gets forked off, the kernel releases become much more like service packs. I know if you are running anything less than 2.2.16, most people will suggest you upgrade.
In the early numbers however, it is probably worthwhile upgrading now and again to get rid of those bugs that surface up in the major version change.
Fear: When you see B8 00 4C CD 21 and know what it means
What about the user-space NFS daemon? (Or, is it the NFS client that's broken?)
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I know this won't fix the problem, but it does render it moot: try installing ntpd and ntpdate. (NTP - Network Time Protocol).
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Could it be a weird interaction between Linux and a Y2K bug?
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Like ntpdate?
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get the patch for the 2.4.4 source? It's only about 900k
The UNIX community has had its own slang for 25 years. I can think of no reason to submit to MSFT "culture" in adopting words like "service pack". Newcomers (many from the MSFT world) to LINUX should adapt to an older and richer culture; maybe take a look to the jargon file.
and I just installed 2.4.4.. another 2 hour download.. I hate dialup. :(
Correct?
Home Page
Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
2.4.4 also has the patch for the iptables hole included
<br>
Is this the one for ftp servers? I seem to recall something like that a while back, but I don't run an ftp server so it didn't sound like it affected me.<br>
Things you think are in the Constitution, but are not.
Linux 2.4 Service Pack 5. I'm running Service Pack 2 just fine and I haven't really seen a reason to apply the latest Service Pack as soon as it comes out, unless the changelog mentioned a significant security fix. Otherwise, if it's not broke, don't fix it.
Things you think are in the Constitution, but are not.
Well, i've experienced quite a number of kernel hangups when using various USB hardware. Apparently the USB support isn't quite stable yet; not much of an issue for servers, but it illustrates that there are still serious bugs in the 2.4 kernel, and some may also still be hiding in server-critical areas.
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
You can't miss this! Go check it out right now!
*Sigh*. How long are we going to have to read kernel = kernel + 0.0.1 just released stories? What is the relevance of this, truly? This thing shouldn't even be at freshmeat, for christ's sake.
If not, then I want daily CVS announcements. Please, either completely bore me, or do not bore me at all.
VFS layer cleanups, USB enhancements, oh my! And the march to rock-solid stability continues.
Not that I've had much trouble with the earlier 2.4 kernels on the whole, but I wouldn't run my server farm on them. Soon, though, from the look of things.
Keep up the great work.
Quantum mechanics: the dreams that stuff is made of.
Ever since Solaris 7 (or 2.6 if you had DiskSuite) there has been a journaling option for UFS.
Add the 'logging' option to your mount command (-o logging) and say goodbye to fsck.
Furthermore, 245 is divisible by 7, and everybody knows 7 is God's Divine Number.
Don't you understand ? 245 times == kernel version 2.4.5 ??? It's OBVIOUS : God has decided that this version of Linux will be Lord of Hosts, therefore making NT and Solaris server looking like toys for pagans !
Many thanks to Michael and Slashdot for reporting such a CRUCIAL event in the history of Humanity !
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Enjoy...
http://mirror.sit.wisc.edu/pub/linux/kernel/v2.4/. 4/
ftp://mirror.sit.wisc.edu/mirrors/linux/kernel/v2
According to Alan Cox, the VM system seems (finally) sane now (since 2.4.4-ac10). Check out Alan's full changelog for extreme details of changes at http://www.uwsg.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel /0105.2/1618.html.
Got friends?
linux-2.4.4-ac10 ? Now an anonymous coward can add code to the kernel ? I guess Cowboy Torvalds and Linus Malda did that to allow people to protect their anonymity in coding, e.g. for Microserfs who would want to participate.
But then again, don't expect them not to add boot code to display an ascii goatse.cx picture. Or to call all identifiers nathalie_portman. An also expect the karma whores to add empty for-loops to gain karma.
If it ain't broke, do some testing before you fix it.
That being said, I am continually looking at migrating over to later kernels as the performance boosts I have seen have been pretty incredible particulalry for my Athlon boxes. One of them is a PDC/File/Print server (SAMBA), Apache+PhP web server, MySQL and PostgreSQL database servers, etc. mostly for development work, and the memory usage is way down from the 2.2.x kernels.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Yeah .. it's not very elegant yet. :)
The best way I've figured out how to do it is to install your OS on a your first disk (like usual), bring up a mirror set in degraded mode (/dev/md0 with only second disk online), copy your OS over (in single user mode), lilo, and boot off the mirror. Then, bring your first disk online and let the mirror sync. Lilo one last time, and you're set.
--
All men are great
before declaring war
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
Fear for me.
I see no reason for using a journaling file system; you pay significantly in terms of performance and you do not get any meaningful improvements in reliability. And LVM actually greatly decreases system manageability and reliability. After several years of using that junk on IBM boxes, I'm glad I don't have to put up with it on Linux. Linux does need to have it, of course, but only to be buzzword compliant.
Also, the tradeoff doesn't work out. Let's say journalling has 5% overhead. That's an hour a day on disk-bound machines. For reasonable server uptimes, you spend more time journalling than you would if you just ran fsck once in a blue moon.
If you say that you can't tolerate the downtime in a single chunk, journalling isn't going to protect you. To deal with hardware failures, you still need hot backup systems.