Archive of posts from 2020

• 1 December 2020

  Debian LTS work, November 2020

  I was assigned 16 hours of work by Freexian's Debian LTS initiative and carried over 4.5 hours from earlier months. I worked 11.5 hours this month, so I will carry over 9 hours to December.

  I continued working on backporting fixes for some less urgent security issues in Linux 4.9. I had to give up on some filesystem fixes as they caused regressions. The others have now been applied to the 4.9 stable branch at kernel.org.

  I updated the linux packaging branch for stretch to Linux 4.9.246, but haven't made a new package upload yet.

• 4 November 2020

  Debian LTS work, October 2020

  I was assigned 6.25 hours of work by Freexian's Debian LTS initiative and carried over 17.5 hours from earlier months. I worked 11.5 hours this month and returned 7.75 hours to the pool, so I will carry over 4.5 hours to November.

  I updated linux-4.19 to include the changes in DSA-4772-1, and issued DLA-2417-1 for this.

  I updated linux (4.9 kernel) to include upstream stable fixes, and issued DLA-2420-1. This resulted in a regression on some Xen PV environments. Ian Jackson identified the upstream fix for this, which had not yet been applied to all the stable branches that needed it. I made a further update with just that fix, and issued DLA-2420-2.

  I have also been working to backport fixes for some less urgent security issues in Linux 4.9, but have not yet applied those fixes.

• 3 October 2020

  Debian LTS work, September 2020

  I was assigned 16 hours of work by Freexian's Debian LTS initiative and carried over 9.75 hours from August. I only worked 8.25 hours this month, and will return excess hours to the pool.

  I attended and participated in the LTS team meeting on the 24th.

  I updated linux-4.19 to include the changes in the buster point release, and issued DLA-2385-1.

  I began work on an update to the linux (Linux 4.9 kernel) package.

• 3 September 2020

  Debian LTS work, August 2020

  I was assigned 16 hours of work by Freexian's Debian LTS initiative, but only worked 6.25 hours this month and have carried over the rest to September.

  I finished my work to add Linux 4.19 to the stretch-security suite, providing an upgrade path for those previously installing it from stretch-backports (DLA-2323-1, DLA-2324-1). I also updated the firmware-nonfree package (DLA-2321-1) so that firmware needed by drivers in Linux 4.19 is also be available in the non-free section of the stretch-security suite.

  I also reviewed the report of the Debian LTS survey and commented on the presentation of results. This report was presented in the Debian LTS BoF at DebConf.

• 1 August 2020

  Debian LTS work, July 2020

  I was assigned 20 hours of work by Freexian's Debian LTS initiative, but only worked 5 hours this month and returned the remainder to the pool.

  Now that Debian 9 'stretch' has entered LTS, the stretch-backports suite will be closed and no longer updated. However, some stretch users rely on the newer kernel version provided there. I prepared to add Linux 4.19 to the stretch-security suite, alongside the standard package of Linux 4.9. I also prepared to update the firmware-nonfree package so that firmware needed by drivers in Linux 4.19 will also be available in stretch's non-free section. Both these updates will be based on the packages in stretch-backports, but needed some changes to avoid conflicts or regressions for users that continue using Linux 4.9 or older non-Debian kernel versions. I will upload these after the Debian 10 'buster' point release.

• 2 July 2020

  Debian LTS work, June 2020

  I was assigned 20 hours of work by Freexian's Debian LTS initiative, and worked all 20 hours this month.

  I sent a final request for testing for the next update to Linux 3.16 in jessie. I also prepared an update to Linux 4.9, included in both jessie and stretch. I completed backporting of kernel changes related to CVE-2020-0543, which was still under embargo, to Linux 3.16.

  Finally I uploaded the updates for Linux 3.16 and 4.9, and issued DLA-2241 and DLA-2242.

  The end of June marked the end of long-term support for Debian 8 "jessie" and for Linux 3.16. I am no longer maintaining any stable kernel branches, but will continue contributing to them as part of my work on Debian 9 "stretch" LTS and other Debian releases.

• 3 June 2020

  Introducing debplate, a template system for Debian packages

  For about two months I've been working on a new project, debplate, which currently lives at benh/debplate on Salsa. This is a template system for Debian packages, primarily intended to ease building multiple similar binary packages from a single source. With some changes, it could also be useful for making multiple source packages consistent (issue #9).

  I want debplate to be capable of replacing the kernel team's existing template system and a lot of its custom scripting, but it is also meant to a general tool. I believe it's already capable of supporting source packages with relatively simple needs, and there are some examples of these in the debplate source. My long-term goal is that debplate will replace most team-specific and package-specific template systems, making those source packages using it less unusual and easier to contribute to.

  I gave a short talk about debplate at MiniDebConf Online on Sunday.

• 3 June 2020

  Debian LTS work, May 2020

  I was assigned 17.25 hours of work by Freexian's Debian LTS initiative, and carried over 2.5 hours from April. I worked all 19.75 hours this month.

  I sent a request for testing an update of the linux package to 3.16.83. I then prepared and, after review, released Linux 3.16.84. I rebased the linux package onto that and sent out a further request for testing. I then backported some additional security fixes, but have still not made an upload.

  I attended the LTS contributor meeting on IRC.

• 10 May 2020

  Debian LTS work, April 2020

  I was assigned 20 hours of work by Freexian's Debian LTS initiative, and carried over 8.5 hours from March. I worked 26 hours this month, so I will carry over 2.5 hours to May.

  I sent a (belated) request for testing an update of the linux package to 3.16.82. I then prepared and, after review, released Linux 3.16.83, including a large number of security fixes. I rebased the linux package onto that and will soon send out a request for testing. I also spent some time working on a still-embargoed security issue.

  I did not spend signficant time on any other LTS activities this month, and unfortunately missed the contributor meeting.

• 1 April 2020

  Debian LTS work, March 2020

  I was assigned 20 hours of work by Freexian's Debian LTS initiative, and carried over 0.75 hours from February. I only worked 12.25 hours this month, so I will carry over 8.5 hours to April.

  I issued DLA 2114-1 for the update to linux-4.9.

  I continued preparing and testing the next update to Linux 3.16. This includes a number of filesystem fixes that require running the "xfstests" test suite.

  I also replied to questions from LTS contributors and users, sent to me personally or on the public mailing list.

• 3 March 2020

  Debian LTS work, February 2020

  I was assigned 20 hours of work by Freexian's Debian LTS initiative and worked 19.25 hours this month, so I will carry over 0.75 hours to March.

  I prepared and, after review, released Linux 3.16.82. I then rebased the Debian package onto that, but haven't yet sent a request for testing. I have started preparing and testing the next update to Linux 3.16.

  I backported the Linux 4.9 package that was included in the stretch point release (Debian 9.12) and uploaded it to jessie. I prepared DLA 2114-1 covering this update.

  I also replied to questions from LTS contributors and users, sent to the lts-security alias or on the public mailing list.

• 3 February 2020

  Debian LTS work, January 2020

  I was assigned 20 hours of work by Freexian's Debian LTS initiative and worked all 20 hours this month.

  I rebased the Debian package of Linux onto 3.16.80 and send out a request for testing.

  I prepared and, after review, released Linux 3.16.81. I then rebased the Debian package onto that and sent out another request for testing. Finally, I uploaded the package and issued DLA 2068-1.

  I also replied to questions from other LTS contributors sent to the lts-security alias and on the public mailing list.

• 2 January 2020

  Debian LTS work, December 2019

  I was assigned 16.5 hours of work by Freexian's Debian LTS initiative and carried over 3.75 hours from November. I worked all 20.25 hours this month.

  I prepared and, after review, released Linux 3.16.79. I rebased the Debian package onto 3.16.79 and sent out a request for testing.

  I also released Linux 3.16.80, but haven't yet rebased the Debian package onto this.

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