Re: [PATCH 00/31 v2] PTI support for x86_32

[Andy Lutomirski]

> On Feb 11, 2018, at 2:12 PM, James Bottomley <James.Bottomley@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
>> On Sun, 2018-02-11 at 11:42 -0800, Andy Lutomirski wrote:
>> 
>>> On Feb 11, 2018, at 9:40 AM, Mark D Rustad <mrustad@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On Feb 11, 2018, at 2:59 AM, Adam Borowski <kilobyte@xxxxxxxxxx>
>>>> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> Does Debian make it easy to upgrade to a 64-bit kernel if you
>>>>> have a
>>>>> 32-bit install?
>>>> 
>>>> Quite easy, yeah.  Crossgrading userspace is not for the faint of
>>>> the heart,
>>>> but changing just the kernel is fine.
>>> 
>>> ISTR that iscsi doesn't work when running a 64-bit kernel with a
>>> 32-bit userspace. I remember someone offered kernel patches to fix
>>> it, but I think they were rejected. I haven't messed with that
>>> stuff in many years, so perhaps the userspace side now has
>>> accommodation for it. It might be something to check on.
>>> 
>> 
>> At the risk of suggesting heresy, should we consider removing x86_32
>> support at some point?
> 
> Hey, my cloud server is 32 bit:
> 
> bedivere:~# cat /proc/cpuinfo 
> processor    : 0
> vendor_id    : GenuineIntel
> cpu family    : 15
> model        : 2
> model name    : Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.80GHz
> stepping    : 9
> microcode    : 0x2e
> cpu MHz        : 2813.464
> [...]
> 
> I suspect a lot of people are in the same position: grandfathered in on
> an old hosting plan, but not really willing to switch to a new 64 bit
> box because the monthly cost about doubles and nothing it does is
> currently anywhere up to (let alone over) the capacity of the single
> 686 processor.
> 
> The thing which is making me consider it is actually getting a TPM to
> protect the private keys, but doubling the monthly cost is still a huge
> disincentive.

Where are they hosting this?  Last I checked, replacing a P4 and motherboard with something new paid for itself in about a year in power savings.

> 
> James
>