Messages in this thread | | | Date | Sat, 26 Jun 1999 14:01:32 +0200 | From | Andreas Haumer <> | Subject | Re: Research help needed |
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Hi!
Lou Grinzo wrote: > > I'm currently working on a writing project that will discuss, among > other things, the Linux kernel developers' reputation for fixing > reported bugs very quickly. > > Trying to nail down examples is a little harder than I expected. > I would like to cite several concrete, verifiable examples, along the > lines of, "on Feb. 10, 1999 a security bug was found in component > X, and a fix was coded, tested, and made available on the Internet > within 24 hours." >
Here are some examples from my own experience. Feel free to use them in your project.
1.) Memory leak in bridging code Linux-2.0.36pre One of my customers machines rebooted every other day due to a memory leak in the Linux bridging & IP-alias code. I did some research on this issue (including a quite impressive memory usage statistic over 2 days and memory leak debugging with tools from the kernel mailing list) and reported it on September 21, 1998, at about midnight MET to linux-kernel. Two hours later (at about 02:30am MET!) I got a first answer from Alan Cox, and on September 23rd, 1998 Alan finally released a new kernel which cured the problem. My customers machine is up and running since then...
2.) AMD K6 bugs There were several bugs in the AMD K6 CPU. One of them I found myself during stress-testing Linux-2.0.36 with the tool "crashme". I reported this to linux-kernel on about May 26, 1998. In the following weeks there was a quite interesting discussion on linux-kernel, and finally we found a specific piece of assembler code (a few instructions) which instantly crashed the AMD K6 CPU. We reported this to AMD, but never got an answer... :-( Though there is no "bug-fix" for Linux-2.0 for this specific CPU problem, Linux-2.2 seems to be immune due to different memory handling.
These 2 examples are 100% verifiable, you should find the whole discussion for both examples at any linux-kernel archive.
There were several other occasions where I got instant support from linux-kernel, but I don't have the facts right now, so they probably won't count in your project.
Hope that helps
- andreas
-- Andreas Haumer | email: andreas@xss.co.at | PGP key available *x Software + Systeme | phone: +43.1.6060114-0 | on request. Karmarschgasse 51/2/20 | +43.664.3004449 | A-1100 Vienna, Austria | fax: +43.1.6060114-71 | AH327-RIPE
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