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Meltdown and Spectre Patches Bricking Ubuntu 16.04 Computers (bleepingcomputer.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Ubuntu Xenial 16.04 users who updated to receive the Meltdown and Spectre patches are reporting they are unable to boot their systems and have been forced to roll back to an earlier Linux kernel image. The issues were reported by a large number of users on the Ubuntu forums and Ubuntu's Launchpad bug tracker. Only Ubuntu users running the Xenial 16.04 series appear to be affected.
All users who reported issues said they were unable to boot after upgrading to Ubuntu 16.04 with kernel image 4.4.0-108. Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu OS, deployed Linux kernel image 4.4.0-108 as part of a security update for Ubuntu Xenial 16.04 users, yesterday, on January 9. According to Ubuntu Security Notice USN-3522-1 and an Ubuntu Wiki page, this was the update that delivered the Meltdown and Spectre patches.
All users who reported issues said they were unable to boot after upgrading to Ubuntu 16.04 with kernel image 4.4.0-108. Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu OS, deployed Linux kernel image 4.4.0-108 as part of a security update for Ubuntu Xenial 16.04 users, yesterday, on January 9. According to Ubuntu Security Notice USN-3522-1 and an Ubuntu Wiki page, this was the update that delivered the Meltdown and Spectre patches.
It seems that these companies (Microsoft and Ubuntu and others) are forgetting everything about sound software development practices here. They're in such a hurry to deploy patches that they aren't taking the time to fully test them. The cure is worse than the ailment.
Which has more power: the hammer, or the anvil?
"have been forced to roll back to an earlier Linux kernel image."
So, not actually bricked then...
WORDS MEAN THINGS!
Let those hackers try and get into my system now!
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Kernel 4.4.0-109, which fixes this problem, has already been pushed out.
Apparently, the PTI fix was not quite backported correctly.
For details, see https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1741934
Bricking is the equivalent of applying a killpoke. A software action that makes the hardware henceforth unusable.
This just screws up the kernel and requires you to set up a fresh one, perhaps reinstalling the core system. On Linux this is usually nothing more than a minor annoyance.
Again: it's not bricking. Bricking is when a software update or piece of code renders my smartphone not more useful than a brick and irreversibly so.
Stop using the word just because it's new and describes something significant. It doesn't make your news more interesting, it makes your news false.
Thank you.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Press down arrow at boot menu screen.
I don't think it means what you think it means. If working around the bug means selecting a different item from the menu to boot, it's not really bricked.
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Failing to use a particular new kernel is not "bricking". Bricking, as commonly used, means the physical hardware is unrecoverable and needs to be replaced. Recovering a failed Ubuntu kernel means being able to select a different kernel to boot with. This means console access or access to the disk image. These are problematic and can disable production servers. But it's much less destructive than ruining the physical hardware.
Wow! Guess I'm fortunate to have a newer kernel. I was running the 4.10 kernel and the update upgraded me to the 4.13 kernel. All my computers (including one running the equivalent level of Linux Mint) booted just fine with the 4.13.0-26 kernel.
Buzzing the information Superhighway at Warp speed
From the article comments moments ago:
;-)
> Technically, if you are able to boot with an older kernel, your computer is not bricked.
> You are right. I've updated the title.
Just saw the headline and panicked, checking my Linux systems (all running ubuntu 16.04 LTS) and did a quick check:
myke@mimeticsL01:~$ uname -a
Linux mimeticsL01 4.4.0-108-generic #131-Ubuntu SMP Sun Jan 7 14:34:49 UTC 2018 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
myke@mimeticsL01:~$
I've never had a problem with Ubuntu updates (although I RFTA, it sounds like all Ubuntu users have an issue at one time or another). I suspect that the kernel update was tested before it was released so this updates affects some subset of the systems out there.
Like many other people, I was very concerned when i saw the headline saying the updated was "bricking" systems - whoever wrote the headline needs to have the term "bricking" explained to them (ideally with an actual brick).
In the future, msmash, you might want to be a bit less sensational in the headlines and make sure you understand if the terms used in it are correct.
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
This is not what "bricking" is. If you can fix it (i.e. roll back to an earlier kernel image in this case), it's simply a botched kernel update.
C'mon, msmash.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Unlike last time this article is click bait, if you can roll back the PC it isn't bricked.
My patching script includes purging of all old kernel versions.
... but what about...
I said ALL! It bricked. I need a new laptop now. Can't be helped.
Kernel 4.4.0-109.132 has been issued to fix this
Anybody actually paying attention knew well before The Register printed anything.
The flaw was spelled out reasonably well by LWN as far back as November 15th, and it was noted that it was highly unusual for the patchset to be fast-tracked as it was. LWN also mentioned the initial KPTI patchset (then called KAISER) about a week earlier than that (Nov 10th). A month later, LWN followed up (including notes that ARM64 was affected) - more than a week before The Resister printed anything.
It was clear that something monumental was on the horizon, and that it was related to memory protection.
It was even clear that there was an information embargo in place, because comments were scrubbed from the associated patches.
It's been reasonably public for close to two months now.
The unknowns were more along the lines of "How deep is this pool of excrement," and "Which animal made it." Major OS patches were a fargone conclusion.
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
Meltdown cannot be exploited using Javascript.
Yes it can, even WebKit says so...
REF: https://webkit.org/blog/8048/w...
Most browser vendors are implementing many changes to mitigate Meltdown and Spectre, including things like reducing the precision of high-fidelity timers from 5us to 20us +/- 20us, disabling SharedArrayBuffers and recompiling with Spectre-aware compilers.
I ran into a similar issue on an old AMD machine in another distro. Changed a kernel option to noapic and it worked.
Absolutely no disturbances with Ubuntu 16.04.3 with kernel 4.4.0-109-generic.