Why is Linux 4.10 needed? about dbus-broker

[gregkh]

There shouldn't be any specific kernel reason to stick with 4.9, just use the latest kernel.org releases, 4.9 is really old by now, missing lots of needed features for modern systems :)

[floppym]

My system isn't exactly modern, and 4.9 works fine for me.

I will upgrade when I see some feature that interests me.

[gregkh]

A feature like dbus-broker? :)

[floppym]

Sure, but I would like to know exactly what feature(s) it is using.

[dvdhrm]

We actually rely on features from linux-next, which are not in any release, yet. While older kernels will work just fine, we will be bumping the requirements to 4.14 as soon as it is released.

In particular, those two commits we rely on:

• https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/net/core/sock.c?id=28b5ba2aa0f55d80adb2624564ed2b170c19519e
• https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/davem/net-next.git/commit/net/unix/af_unix.c?id=27eac47b00789522ba00501b0838026e1ecb6f05

4.10 is just a recommendation so far. Feel free to run older kernels. There will never be a silent breakage. Either you will see a big fat error in your logs, or your kernel is fine. However, using kernels without the commit mentioned above means the broker can be DoS'ed by malicious clients, resulting in the broker restarting.

[floppym]

Thanks for explaining. Most appreciated.