On Wed, Aug 22, 2018 at 12:19 PM gregkh <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 22, 2018 at 11:48:12AM +0200, Arnd Bergmann wrote:
> > On Wed, Aug 22, 2018 at 10:45 AM gregkh <[email protected]> wrote:
> > > On Wed, Aug 22, 2018 at 10:04:24AM +0200, Arnd Bergmann wrote:
> > > > On Wed, Aug 22, 2018 at 10:00 AM <[email protected]> wrote:
> > When you pick the next LTS kernel, that version may also be a target for
> > backporting all the syscall patches, but it's likely still a lot of work
> > that
> > we should discuss once we get there, and backporting just a subset of
> > the syscall patches is rather pointless as the resulting kernel will still
> > break in 2038.
>
> 4.19 is going to be the next LTS kernel. Odds are if you want a
> 2038-proof kernel, you can just wait for the LTS I pick next year.
> Although running a 18-year-old kernel isn't probably a wise idea anyway :)
Wise or not, it's going to be done: WRT54g was a popular wireless router
back in 2003, running linux-2.4.1, and I'm sure some of them are still
around having never been upgraded. Their owners would be slightly
annoyed if it happened to stop working next year when that kernel has
reached its drinking age.
If you buy an Amazon Kindle today, it probably still runs a 3.0.17 kernel
from 2011 (source: wikipedia; my older model is still on 2.6.31).
Nobody is ever worried about root exploits on those devices, but it
would be a shame if one stops working and takes a collection of
downloaded books with it that might not be downloadable any more
after 10 years of use.
As an estimate, we may have a thousand times more products that
get designed with a years-old kernel now than in 2003. When they get
sold for 2 to 10 years each before taken off the market, you end up with
a lot of new things in stores running 4.19 years from now, and many
of those TV sets, power sockets, airliners, solar panels, traffic lights,
bulldozers, and elevator doors will seem absolutely fine on January
18, 2038 running 32-bit user space, but then "suddenly all cry out in
terror before being suddenly silenced" the next day.
That still doesn't mean we can do much about it though: even if we
backport all the kernel changes to 4.19, most of the crap embedded
stuff using it will also have broken user space. For the moment, we're
still busy fixing mainline, we'll see how hard the backport is when
that is done.
Arnd
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