We are pleased to announce that the Systems Boot and Security Microconference has been accepted into the 2020 Linux Plumbers Conference!
Computer-system security is an important topic to many. Maintaining data security and system integrity is crucial for businesses and individuals. Computer security is paramount even at system boot up, as firmware attacks can compromise the system before the operating system starts. In order to keep the integrity of the system intact, both the firmware as well as the rest of the system must be vigilant in monitoring and preventing malware intrusion.
As a result of last year’s microconference Oracle sent out patches to support Trenchboot in the Linux kernel and in GRUB2. An agreement was also reached on problems with TPM 2.0 Linux sysfs interface.
Over the past year, 3mdeb has been working on various open-source contributions to LandingZone and also GRUB2 and Linux kernel to improve TrenchBoot support.
This year’s topics to be discussed include:
- Continued work on TrenchBoot
- TrenchBoot and UEFI runtime services
- Passing the bootloader logs to the kernel/userspace
- LinuxBoot – UEFI support improvements in the kernel
- SMI Transfer Monitor (STM) and its impact on security
- More topics that cross the firmware/Linux boundary
Come and join us in the discussion about how to keep your system secure even at bootup. We hope to see you there!
We are pleased to announce that the Testing and Fuzzing Microconference has been accepted into the 2020 Linux Plumbers Conference!
Testing and Fuzzing is crucial to the stability the Linux Kernel demands. Last year’s meetup helped make Kernel CI a Linux Foundation hosted project, collaboration between Red Hat CKI and KernelCI. On the more technical side, KUnit was merged upstream, and KernelCI integration is underway, syzcaller reproducers are being included in the Linux Test Project[5], and Clang is integrated in KernelCI.
This year’s topics to be discussed include:
- Next steps for KernelCI (data formats, dashboards, etc)[7]
- Structured data feeds for cross-project collaboration
- Integration with kernel.org tools (e.g. b4)
- Continued defragmentation of testing infrastructure
- Better sanitizers: KASAN improvements, KCSAN fallout, future plans.[9]
- Better hardware testing, hardware sanitizers: how the USB fallout was handled, are there efforts to poke at something besides USB?
- Improving real-time testing: is there any testing for real time at all?
Come and join us in the discussion of keeping Linux the fastest moving, reliable piece of software in the world!
We hope to see you there!
We’re really sorry, but apparently the Cvent registration site we use has suffered a bug which is causing it to mark the conference as “Sold Out” and, unfortunately, since today is the beginning of the American Independence day weekend, we can’t get anyone to fix it until Monday. However, rest assured there are plenty of places still available, so if you can wait until Monday, you should be able to register for the conference as soon as the site is fixed.
Again, we’re really sorry for the problem and the fact that fixing it will take a further three days.
We are pleased to announce that the Call for Proposals for the Networking and BPF Summit at Linux Plumbers Conference 2020 is now open.
Please submit your proposals here.
Looking forward to seeing your great contributions!
Thank you to everyone who attended the Linux Plumbers town hall on June 25th. It was successful thanks to your participation. We’re pleased to announce another town hall on July 16th at 8am PST / 11am EST / 3pm GMT. This town hall will feature Jon Corbet of LWN giving “The Kernel Weather Report”.
The Linux kernel is at the core of any Linux system; the performance and capabilities of the kernel will, in the end, place an upper bound on what the system as a whole can do. This talk will review recent events in the kernel development community, discuss the current state of the kernel and the challenges it faces, and look forward to how the kernel may address those challenges. Attendees of any technical ability should gain a better understanding of how the kernel got to its current state and what can be expected in the near future.
Please note that the Plumbers Code of Conduct will be in effect for this event. We also plan to record this event. We will post the URL for the town hall on the LPC blog prior to the event. We hope to see you there and help make Plumbers the best conference for everyone.
Please use the following link on Thursday June 25 2020 at 8am PDT/ 11am EDT/ 3pm GMT to join the LPC Town Hall:
https://linuxplumbers.lwn.net/b/lin-rs8-zoh
Note that no account is necessary!
Please refer to the previous post about the Town Hall to get more info.
See you there!
Registration is now open for the 2020 edition of the Linux Plumbers Conference (LPC). It will be held August 24 – 28, virtually. Go to the attend page for more information.
Note that the CFPs for microconferences, refereed track talks, and BoFs are still open, please see this page for more information.
As always, please contact the organizing committee if you have questions.
We are pleased to announce that the Kernel Dependability & Assurance Microconference has been accepted into the 2020 Linux Plumbers Conference!
Linux is now being used in applications that are going to require a high degree of confidence that the kernel is going to behave as expected. Some of the key areas we’re seeing Linux now start to be used are in medical devices, civil infrastructure, caregiving robots, automotives, etc. This brings up a number of concerns that must be addressed. What sort of uptime can we count on? Should safety analysis be reevaluated after a bug fix has been made? Are all the system requirements being satisfied by Linux? What tooling is there to solve these questions?
This microconference is the place that the kernels community can come together and discuss these major issues. Topics to be discussed include:
- Kernel Quality Assurance beyond Testing and CI
- Understanding the Users’ Expectations on Software Quality for safety critical systems:
- Define safety requirements for overall kernel: features, tests etc.
- Define run-time characteristics and requirements
- Identify missing features necessary to operate in safety critical environments.
- Regression Testing for safety: Identify configurations and tests critical and important for safety quality and dependability:
- Discuss and identify gaps in tests.
- Add tests and add configurations to existing test rings.
- Understanding the Kernel Development Organisation and Management
- Assessing, Measuring and Evaluating the Development Process
Come and join us in making the most popular operating system the most dependable as well. We hope to see you there!
The Linux Plumbers Committee is pleased to announce a Town Hall meeting on June 25 at 8am PDT/ 11am EDT/ 3pm GMT. This meeting serves two purposes. The first purpose is to test our remote conference set up. This is the first time we are holding Linux Plumbers virtually and while we can run simulated tests, it’s much more effective to test our setup with actual participants with differing hardware set ups around the world. The second purpose is to present on our planning and give everyone a little bit of an idea of what to expect when we hold Plumbers at the end of August. We plan to have time for questions.
Given this is a test, the number of participants will be capped at 250 people. The purpose of this test is to examine the scale to which the infrastructure can handle the expected demand for a virtual Linux Plumbers Conference. If you can’t make this day or are blocked by the participation cap from joining, we expect to be running more tests in the days to come.
Please note that the Plumbers Code of Conduct will be in effect for this event. We also plan to record this event as we will be recording sessions at the actual conference. We will post the URL for the town hall on the LPC blog prior to the event. We hope to see you there and help make Plumbers the best conference for everyone.
The committee is relentlessly working on recreating online the Linux Plumbers Conference (LPC) experience that we have all come to appreciate, and take for granted, over the past few years.
We had initially planned to open registration on June 15th. While travel planning is not one, there are still very many aspects of the conference being worked on. We are now aiming to open registration for Linux Plumbers Conference (LPC) on June 23rd.
Right now we have shortlisted BigBlueButton as our online conferencing solution. One of our objectives is to run LPC 2020 online on a full open software stack.
We anticipate running our usual set of parallel tracks, including microconferences per day. With our globally distributed participants, identifying the timezone most convenient is still work in progress. There will be a timezone question on our registration form, please make sure to answer it.
To help us test part of the online platform, and offer transparency about where things stand with LPC 2020 preparation, the committee is currently planning the first ever “LPC Town Hall Meeting”. We hope to host it very soon. More information will be made available very soon.
As previously announced, we are reducing the conference registration fee to US$50. Registration availability has been an issue in past years. We have no way to anticipate what the uptake will be for LPC 2020 registration. The committee will try its best to meet registration demand. Also, several Call for Proposals are open and awaiting your contributions.
We will be sharing more information with everyone here soon. Looking forward to LPC 2020 together with you.
