Re: [vserver] Vserver kernel support

On Fri, May 16, 2008 at 04:44:27PM -0500, Corey Wright wrote:
> the most recent vserver stable patch is 2.2.0.7 for kernel 2.6.22. the
> most recent security patch to 2.6.22 is maintained by oliver pinter. i
> have advertised this fact on this mailing list [1] and elsewhere [2]. it
> all patches cleanly except for the EXTRAVERSION in the top-level Makefile
> (which is to be expected when using patches from two or more sources).
>
> that describes my kernel sources until a new vserver stable patch comes out
> for a recent kernel.
>
> [1]
> http://list.linux-vserver.org/archive?mss:978:200804:aahmcfjcnaaembflfhob
> [2] http://lwn.net/Articles/281711/

yes, some people maintain older kernels, e.g. Adrian Bunk - 2.6.16.x:
http://kerneltrap.org/2.6.16

> kernel sources so heavily that merging the vserver patch is a tedious
> affair (assuming you know enough about the kernel and C programming to
> undertake the task at all). that's why i use a vanilla kernel: despite the
> manual effort to regularly build new kernel versions to maintain security
> support, it's the easiest kernel source to patch with vserver and the only
> one the linux-vserver project supports.

yes

> i formerly used ubuntu's kernel source, because each release had a minimum
> of 18 months of security support, and i merged the closest vserver stable
> patch with it, but i got tired of spending a whole weekend performing the
> merge and worrying if i merged everything correctly so as to not introduce
> any security problems (eg debian's openssl fiasco). yeah, i probably spend
> an equivalent amount of time over 18 months compiling each new kernel
> release and vserver patch as i would previously spend merging, but it's
> pretty evenly distributed across 18 months and a relatively easy task
> (which is good for security).

ubuntu's kernel is very huge (many addons against vanilla), but there is
LTS (Long Time Supported) releases supported 5 years for servers, which
is very good if someone maintain vserver patch for ubuntu kernel

-- 
5o   Peter.Mann at tuke.sk