6.9.2 patch has spectre/meltdown fix - How?

[dsm1212]

On 1/13 linus pulled the bad intel patch from intel because it was "garbage" (his words not mine). On 1/28 he releases an acceptable version. Netgear puts out 6.9.2 on 1/16. How did netgear get anything other than the first version that was unnacceptable? Will there be a followup to include the 2nd round of change from the linux commmunity?

[mdgm-ntgr · Accepted solution]

6.9.2 does not have patches for Spectre. As shown by the Release Notes it only has for Meltdown.

Meltdown is far more significant so we prioritised getting that addressed.

Spectre mitigation changes are still being worked on. Our kernel is based on a LTS kernel, so we are pulling in Spectre mitigation changes as they become available upstream for that LTS kernel series.

For now you should continue to follow the workarounds suggested in our Security Advisory for Speculative Code Execution (Spectre and Meltdown) on Some ReadyNAS and ReadyDA...

[mdgm-ntgr · Accepted solution]

6.9.2 does not have patches for Spectre. As shown by the Release Notes it only has for Meltdown.

Meltdown is far more significant so we prioritised getting that addressed.

Spectre mitigation changes are still being worked on. Our kernel is based on a LTS kernel, so we are pulling in Spectre mitigation changes as they become available upstream for that LTS kernel series.

For now you should continue to follow the workarounds suggested in our Security Advisory for Speculative Code Execution (Spectre and Meltdown) on Some ReadyNAS and ReadyDA...