[ale] Ouch

[DJ-Pfulio]

Read that Ubuntu is/will as well.  "Additional Drivers"

The Ubuntu page about both issues is:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SecurityTeam/KnowledgeBase/SpectreAndMeltdown

They are testing 64-bit 4.x kernels for cloud images according to the
timeline.

They have been "driving" towards a 1/9 release for most of the updates.
Also, 16.04.x (whatever the next .x is) will be going to 4.13 kernels
early instead of fixing the 4.10.x kernels.  I'm impacted by this for 1
system.


On 01/08/2018 04:15 PM, Beddingfield, Allen via Ale wrote:
> I'm not sure about other distros, but SUSE and CentOS are distributing the microcode as a patch.
> 
> --
> Allen Beddingfield
> Systems Engineer
> Office of Information Technology
> The University of Alabama
> Office 205-348-2251
> allen at ua.edu
> 
> On 1/8/18, 2:40 PM, "Ale on behalf of Lightner, Jeffrey via Ale" <ale-bounces at ale.org on behalf of ale at ale.org> wrote:
> 
>     I just went through documentation at our Linux distro's site,  our main server manufacturer's site and Intel's site.  Am I reading all this correctly?
>     
>     1) Are the OS patches only effective if we've also applied a CPU microcode/firmware update?
>     
>     2) Intel's site seems to suggest it is relying on server manufacturers to push out microcode/firmware updates? 
>     
>     3) There seems to be discussion of a microcode_ctl at RedHat but some comments seem to suggest it isn't for everything (and/or may not exist any longer).
>     
>     4) Assuming the foregoing and if the manufacturer isn't releasing a bios update for older servers does it mean there is no action I can or should take (other than replacing the hardware or insuring it is isolated)?   i.e. Is there no point in applying the OS update if there is not a microcode/firmware update of the CPU as well?
>     
>     
>     -----Original Message-----
>     From: Ale [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org] On Behalf Of Alex Carver via Ale
>     Sent: Wednesday, January 03, 2018 4:59 PM
>     To: Jim Kinney via Ale
>     Subject: Re: [ale] Ouch
>     
>     This also appears to extend to ARM64 as well:
>     https://lwn.net/Articles/740393/
>     
>     That sucks more given how many ARM-based processors are around (including phones) and can't exactly handle a 20-30% performance hit.
>     
>     
>     
>     On 2018-01-03 07:04, Jim Kinney via Ale wrote:
>     > Good data. Thanks. 
>     > 
>     > On Wed, 2018-01-03 at 07:47 -0500, Solomon Peachy via Ale wrote:
>     >> On Tue, Jan 02, 2018 at 10:24:07PM -0500, Raj Wurttemberg via Ale
>     >> wrote:
>     >>> Ohh.. yeah... Ouch!!  A 30% performance hit?!?!  
>     >>
>     >> It's actually not _that_ bad -- it's a significant performance hit on 
>     >> making system calls -- the only measurements I've seen have shown a 
>     >> 38% increase in the overhead to read() --actual processing is 
>     >> unaffected.
>     >>
>     >> On the other hand, I/O intensive workloads are the most heavily 
>     >> impacted.  The PostgreSQL folks have done some preliminary benchmarks 
>     >> and it's not pretty:
>     >>
>     >>   https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/20180102222354.qikjmf7dvnjgbk
>     >> xe at alap3.anarazel.de
>     >>
>     >>  - Solomon
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