Hi Aaron,
Just to point out that it is not only an issue with RedHat. Poplog
won't run on "longterm stable" ubuntu with current kernels either.
Steve
On Mon, 3 May 2021, Aaron Sloman A.Sloman-at-cs.bham.ac.uk |pop-forum| wrote:
I posted a report to the Redhat Bugzilla site some time ago reporting that
kernel 5.8 had made Poplog (both 64 bit and 32 bit) unusable, suggesting that
this was related to claims by Linus Torvalds that his most recent changes
had led to security improvements.
[I've now found these references to his claims:
https://www.zdnet.com/article/linus-torvalds-linux-kernel-5-8-is-one-of-our-biggest-releases-of-all-time/
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2020/08/linux-5-8-kernel-features]
For a long time I got no response to my report, until a kernel change led
someone to look at my report. He suggested:
"I don't believe this is so much a bug as poplog needing to change how things
are done to work with upstream security changes."
If they have made run-time construction and execution of portions of machine
code completely impossible, in order to improve security, as I suspect, then
there will not be a user-level fix. Instead there needs to be a system-wide
switch enabling (expert) users to turn off that new feature.
Anyhow I've replied asking whether such a switch has been provided (which I
doubt) and if not asking for one to be provided as has happened with other
security features (selinux).
(I can't use linux hibernate, which I use a lot, without turning off one of the
bios security switches.)
Anyhow if anyone wants to comment on my report (for which you'll have to
register), either to disagree with it or agree and endorse the request for a
new global switch, you can do so here:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1879625
Aaron
http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~axs
