Linux 6.10 Released

Linux v6.10 was released on Sunday, July 14th. I already wrote up a post highlighting the LSM, SELinux, and audit changes that were submitted during the merge window, however there were additional changes that went in during the release candidate process which are described below.

LSM

• Resolve a potential kernel panic caused by blocking allocations in the IMA code while in a RCU critical section. The blocking allocation causes a premature end to the critical section which can result in a use-after-free fault in some situations.

• Improvements to the extended attribute (xattr) copy-up code to allow LSMs to decide if an xattr should be copied up based on a combination of the xattr name and context. Previously LSMs were limited to making copy-up decisions based solely on the xattr name. This should allow for better LSM support on composite filesytems such as overlayfs.

In addition to my highlights, LWN.net provides a nice overall summary of the kernel changes made during the first and second weeks of the merge window.