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-What's new in the Linux kernel - DebConf 2013
+What's new in the Linux kernel - DebConf 2014
@@ -39,7 +39,7 @@
@@ -50,6 +50,7 @@
What's new in the Linux kernel
+
and what's missing in Debian
Ben Hutchings
@@ -58,24 +59,297 @@
Professional software engineer by day, Debian developer by night
+ (or sometimes the other way round)
Regular Linux contributor in both roles since 2008
+
+
+ Working on various drivers and kernel code in my day job
+
+
+ Debian kernel team member, now doing most of the unstable
+ maintenance aside from ports
+
+
+ Maintaining Linux 3.2.y stable update series on
+ kernel.org
+
+
+
+
+
+
Linux releases early and often
+
+
+ Linux is released about 5 times a year (plus stable updates
+ every week or two)
- Maintaining a net driver in my day job, plus core networking
- and PCI code as necessary
-
-
- Debian kernel team member, now doing most of the unstable
- maintenance aside from ports
-
-
- Maintaining Linux 3.2.y stable update series on
- kernel.org
+ ...though some features aren't ready to use when they first
+ appear in a release
+
+ Since my talk last year, Linus has made 6 releases (3.11-3.16)
+
+
+ Good news: we have lots of new kernel features in testing/unstable
+
+
+ Bad news: some of them won't really work without new userland
+
+
+
+
+
+
Recap of last year's features (1)
+
+
+ Team device driver: userland package (libteam) was uploaded in
+ October
+
+
+ Transcendent memory: frontswap, zswap and Xen tmem will be
+ enabled in next kernel upload
+
+
+ New KMS drivers: should all work with current Xorg drivers
+
+
+ Module signing: still not enabled, but probably will be if we
+ do Secure Boot
+
+
+
+
+
+
Recap of last year's features (2)
+
+
+ More support for discard: still not enabled at install time
+ (#690977)
+
+
+ More support for containers: XFS was fixed, and user namespaces
+ have been enabled
+
+
+ bcache: userland package (bcache-tools) still not quite ready
+ (#708132)
+
+
+ ARMv7 multiplatform: d-i works on some platforms but
+ I'm still not sure which. Some progress on GPU drivers, but not
+ in Debian yet.
+
+
+
+
+
+
Unnamed temporary files [3.11]
+
+
+ Open directory with option O_TMPFILE to create an
+ unnamed temporary file on that filesystem
+
+
+ As with tmpfile(), the file disppears on
+ last close()
+
+
+ File can be linked into the filesystem using
+ linkat(..., AT_EMPTY_PATH), allowing for 'atomic'
+ creation of file with complete contents and metadata
+
+
+ Not supported on all filesystem types, so you will usually need
+ a fallback
+
+
+
+
+
+
Lustre filesystem [3.12]
+
+
+ A distributed filesystem, popular for cluster computing
+ applications
+
+
+ Developed out-of-tree since 1999, but now added to Linux staging
+ directory
+
+
+ Was included in squeeze but dropped from wheezy as it didn't
+ support Linux 3.2
+
+
+ Userland is now missing from Debian
+
+
+
+
+
+
Network busy-polling [3.11] (1)
+
A conventional network request/response process looks like:
+
+
+
+ Task calls send(); network stack constructs a
+ packet; driver adds it to hardware Tx queue
+
+
+ Task calls poll() or recv(), which blocks;
+ kernel puts it to sleep and possibly idles the CPU
+
+
+ Network adapter receives response and generates IRQ, waking
+ up CPU
+
+
+ Driver's IRQ handler schedules polling of the hardware Rx
+ queue (NAPI)
+
+
+ Kernel runs the driver's NAPI poll function, which passes
+ the response packet into the network stack
+
+
+ Network stack decodes packet headers and adds packet to
+ the task's socket
+
+
+ Network stack wakes up sleeping task; scheduler switches
+ to it and the socket call returns
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
Network busy-polling [3.11] (2)
+
+
+ If driver supports busy-polling, it tags each packet with
+ the receiving NAPI context, and kernel tags sockets
+
+
+ When busy-polling is enabled, poll()
+ and recv() call the driver's busy poll function to
+ check for packets synchronously (up to some time limit)
+
+
+ If the response usually arrives quickly, this reduces overall
+ request/response latency as there are no context switches and
+ power transitions
+
+
+ Time limit set by sysctl (net.busy_poll,
+ net.busy_read) or socket option (SOL_SOCKET,
+ SO_BUSY_POLL); requires tuning
+
+
+
+
+
+
Btrfs offline dedupe [3.12]
+
+
+ Btrfs generally does COW rather than updating in-place, allowing
+ snapshots and file copies to defer the actual copying and save
+ space
+
+
+ Filesystems may still end up with multiple copies of the same
+ file content
+
+
+ Btrfs doesn't actively merge these duplicates, but userland can
+ tell it to do so
+
+
+ Many file dedupe tools are packaged for Debian, but not one that
+ works with this Btrfs feature, e.g. bedup
+
+
+
+
+
+
nftables [3.13]
+
+
+ Linux has several firewall APIs - iptables, ip6tables, arptables
+ and ebtables
+
+
+ All require a specific kernel module for each type of match
+ and each possible action
+
+
+ Userland could only use the four protocol-specific APIs,
+ although the internal netfilter API is more flexible
+
+
+ nftables exposes more of this flexibility, allowing userland
+ to provide firewall code for a specialised VM (similar to BPF)
+
+
+ nftables userland tool uses this API and is already packaged
+
+
+ Eventually, the old APIs will be removed and the old userland
+ tools must be ported to use nftables
+
+
+
+
+
+
User-space lockdep [3.14]
+
+
+ Kernel threads and interrupts all run in same address space,
+ using several different synchronisation mechanisms
+
+
+ Easy to introduce bugs that can result in deadlock, but hard to
+ reproduce them
+
+
+ Kernel's 'lockdep' system dynamically tracks locking operations
+ and detects potential deadlocks
+
+
+ Now available as a userland library! Except we need to package
+ it (build from linux-tools source package)
+
+
+
+
+
+
arm64 and ppc64el ports
+
+
+ 'arm64' architecture was added in Linux 3.7, but was not yet
+ usable, and no real hardware was available at the time
+
+
+ Upstream Linux arm64 kernel, and Debian packages, should now run
+ on emulators and real hardware
+
+
+ 'powerpc' architecture has been available for many years,
+ but didn't support kernel running little-endian
+
+
+ Linux 3.13 added little-endian kernel suport, along with new
+ userland ELF ABI variant - we call it ppc64el
+
+
+ Both ports now being bootstrapped in unstable and are candidates
+ for jessie release
+