Re: [PATCH 3.13 163/163] lzo: check for length overrun in variable length encoding.

From: Greg Kroah-Hartman
Date: Thu Oct 16 2014 - 10:23:47 EST


On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 10:58:41AM +0200, Luis Henriques wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 03:52:33AM +0200, Greg Kroah-Hartman wrote:
> > On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 10:31:03AM -0700, Kamal Mostafa wrote:
> > > On Fri, 2014-10-10 at 07:30 +0200, Willy Tarreau wrote:
> > > > Hi Kamal,
> > > >
> > > > [ removed Don Bailey from the CC who's certainly not interested in this ]
> > > >
> > > > On Thu, Oct 09, 2014 at 02:03:08PM -0700, Kamal Mostafa wrote:
> > > > > 3.13.11.9 -stable review patch. If anyone has any objections, please let me know.
> > > > >
> > > > > ------------------
> > > > >
> > > > > From: Willy Tarreau <w@xxxxxx>
> > > > >
> > > > > commit 72cf90124e87d975d0b2114d930808c58b4c05e4 upstream.
> > > >
> > > > (...)
> > >
> > > Hi Willy-
> > >
> > > Thanks very much for reviewing this.
> > >
> > > > This one (and the accompanying revert) are still not present in more
> > > > recent stable kernels, so I find it surprizing that you're proposing
> > > > to integrate them now.
> > >
> > > I can hold out those lzo fixes until the next 3.13-stable if you prefer.
> >
> > Please do so.
> >
> > > But fwiw...
> > >
> > > > If someone upgrades from 3.13.11.9 to 3.14.21
> > > > or 3.16.5, they'd expect to keep all fixes but will lose this one, so
> > > > this is a bit confusing.
> > >
> > > I think those sorts of scheduling mismatches and discrepancies between
> > > stable versions are pretty common. Examples: The top 11 commits in
> > > v3.12.30 have not yet been applied[0] to any of the newer stable
> > > branches;
> >
> > Those -mm patches from Mel are "special", I'm taking it slow in merging
> > them, doing lots of local testing and code review, and not all of them
> > even are relevant for 3.14, so don't take the acceptance /
> > non-acceptance of them as any kind of "proof" of anything at all.
> >
> > > Many of the commits in v3.10.57 have not yet been applied[1]
> > > to linux-3.12.y but have been released in other newer stables.
> >
> > That's because I am ahead of Jiri, which will almost always happen due
> > to our different workflows and time available to spend on stable
> > kernels.
> >
> > > > Is there any reason you're not tracking fixes
> > > > from more recent versions like Jiri, Li, Ben and I are doing ?
> > >
> > > We (the Canonical stable maintainers) have always tracked the "cc:
> > > stable" fixes directly from mainline, not from the more-recent-version
> > > branches. Given the examples above, it seems that the kernel.org
> > > maintainers are doing that too, yes?
> >
> > You have included patches in your release that are not in _any_ public
> > release on kernel.org yet. Which is fine, you are allowed to do
> > whatever you want, but that goes against the existing rules of stable
> > patches that we have been following for well over the past year for when
> > it is acceptable to add a patch to a stable release.
> >
>
> Could you please provide us with examples of commits in one of our
> extended stable trees that is not on any other public release at
> kernel.org? We really try hard to follow the process defined for the
> official stable kernels, so if this has happen in the past it was
> definitely a mistake from our side, and we would love to get your
> feedback during the review cycles.

I don't really know, and honestly, don't care to spend the time and
energy to dig through to find this out. The lzo ones jumped out at me
as I know the history behind them, and if you note, _I_ even didn't put
them in a stable kernel yet, as they have not shown up in a release from
Linus.

As the maintainer involved didn't ask you to go against the well-known
stable tree rules, that's a warning to others that perhaps something is
wrong here...

best of luck,

greg k-h
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