If all kernel bugs are security bugs, how do you keep your Linux safe?

The fact that you think it's not possible means that you're not familiar with CVSS scores, which every CVE includes and which are widely used in regulated fields.

And if you think that always updating to the latest version keeps you safe then you've forgotten about the recent xz backdoor.

I dunno, Stallman, it's been 30 years, you got something for us?

I think we should just resurrect Plan 9 instead.

Redox-OS?

L4. HURD never panned out, and L4 is where the microkernel research settled: Memory protection, scheduling, IPC in the kernel the rest outside and there's also important insights as to the APIs to do that with. In particular the IPC mechanism is opaque, the kernel doesn't actually read the messages which was the main innovation over Mach.

Literally billions of devices run OKL4, seL4 systems are also in mass production. Think broadband processors, automotive, that kind of stuff.

The kernel being watertight doesn't mean that your system is, though, you generally don't need kernel privileges to exfiltrate any data or generally mess around, root suffices.

If you want to see this happening -- I guess port AMDGPU to an L4?

Everybody knows it was. Even Linus said a microkernel architecture was better. He just wanted something working “now” for his hobby project, and microkernel research was still ongoing then.

I ran it and followed a documentation to install Void Linux and now it runs so much smoother!

Jokes on you I use a mac

I'm genuinely worried sometimes that a Ken hack has been introduced. I don't know by who, but possibly some government agency. Then again, we also have a Minix system built into the CPU doing god knows what and we just accept that.

There are lots of things the Kernel controls that can have non security related bugs, e.g. controller with the wrong mapping https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/9131f8cc2b4eaf7c08d402243429e0bfba9aa0d6

It's a wild assumption to claim "All bugs in the Linux kernel are security issues", without any backing, whoever is making that claim needs to provide evidence since the default position for any program is that there are bugs that are not security issues.

defend one out there assumption with another, i guess.

who can tell if sidewinder force feedback (11684) is a security bug or just one that affects people using old joysticks. better treat it with all the seriousness of xv just to be sure!

lol

There are two schools of thought here. The "never risk anything that could potentially break something" school and the "make stuff robust enough that it will deal with broken states". Usually the former doesn't work so well once something actually breaks.

Both my Debian 12 servers run with unattended upgrades. I've never had anything break from the changes in packages, I think. I tend to use docker and on one even lxc containers (proxmox), but the lxc containers also have unattended upgrades running.

Do you just update your stuff manually or do you not update at all? I'm subscribed to the Debian security mailing list, and they frequently find something that means people should upgrade, recently something with the glibc.

Debian especially is focused on being very stable, so updating should never break anything that wasn't broken before. Sometimes docker containers don't like to restart so they refuse, but then I did something stupid.

That only applies to unstable distros. Stable distros, like debian, maintain their own versions of packages.

Debian in particular, only includes security patches and changes in their packages - no new features at all.* This means risk of breakage and incompatibilitu is very low, basically nil.

*exceot for certain packages which aren't viable to maintain, like Firefox or other browsers.

Not having automated updates can quickly lead to not doing updates at all. Same goes for backups.

Whenever possible, one should automate tedious stuff.

My airgap stinks.