From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from mail-pl0-f70.google.com (mail-pl0-f70.google.com [209.85.160.70]) by kanga.kvack.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 08CA86B0003 for ; Sun, 8 Jul 2018 09:25:24 -0400 (EDT) Received: by mail-pl0-f70.google.com with SMTP id w1-v6so7936088plq.8 for ; Sun, 08 Jul 2018 06:25:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail.linuxfoundation.org (mail.linuxfoundation.org. [140.211.169.12]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id u11-v6si12037585plq.456.2018.07.08.06.25.22 for (version=TLS1_2 cipher=ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 bits=128/128); Sun, 08 Jul 2018 06:25:22 -0700 (PDT) Date: Sun, 8 Jul 2018 15:25:19 +0200 From: Greg Kroah-Hartman Subject: Re: [PATCH 4.16 234/279] x86/pkeys/selftests: Adjust the self-test to fresh distros that export the pkeys ABI Message-ID: <20180708132519.GA29528@kroah.com> References: <20180618080608.851973560@linuxfoundation.org> <20180618080618.495174114@linuxfoundation.org> <20180703114241.GA19730@kroah.com> <877emakynf.fsf@concordia.ellerman.id.au> <20180705071937.GA2636@gmail.com> <87va9qj9tq.fsf@concordia.ellerman.id.au> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <87va9qj9tq.fsf@concordia.ellerman.id.au> Sender: owner-linux-mm@kvack.org List-ID: To: Michael Ellerman Cc: Ingo Molnar , Vlastimil Babka , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, stable@vger.kernel.org, Dave Hansen , Linus Torvalds , Peter Zijlstra , Thomas Gleixner , akpm@linux-foundation.org, dave.hansen@intel.com, linux-mm@kvack.org, linuxram@us.ibm.com, shakeelb@google.com, shuah@kernel.org, Sasha Levin On Sun, Jul 08, 2018 at 08:33:37PM +1000, Michael Ellerman wrote: > Ingo Molnar writes: > > * Michael Ellerman wrote: > >> Greg Kroah-Hartman writes: > >> > On Tue, Jul 03, 2018 at 01:36:43PM +0200, Vlastimil Babka wrote: > >> >> On 06/18/2018 10:13 AM, Greg Kroah-Hartman wrote: > >> >> > 4.16-stable review patch. If anyone has any objections, please let me know. > >> >> > >> >> So I was wondering, why backport such a considerable number of > >> >> *selftests* to stable, given the stable policy? Surely selftests don't > >> >> affect the kernel itself breaking for users? > >> > > >> > These came in as part of Sasha's "backport fixes" tool. It can't hurt > >> > to add selftest fixes/updates to stable kernels, as for some people, > >> > they only run the selftests for the specific kernel they are building. > >> > While others run selftests for the latest kernel on older kernels, both > >> > of which are valid ways of testing. > >> > >> I don't have a problem with these sort of patches being backported, but > >> it seems like Documentation/process/stable-kernel-rules.txt could use an > >> update? > >> > >> I honestly don't know what the rules are anymore. > > > > Self-tests are standalone tooling which help the testing of the kernel, and it > > makes sense to either update all of them, or none of them. > > Yes I know what selftests are. > > > Here it makes sense to update all of them, because if a self-test on a stable > > kernel shows a failure then a fix is probably missing from -stable, right? > > Usually, though it's not always that simple IME. > > But sure, I don't have a problem with updating selftests, I said that before. > > > Also note that self-test tooling *cannot possibly break the kernel*, because they > > are not used in the kernel build process, so the normally conservative backporting > > rules do not apply. > > Right. So stable-kernel-rules.txt could use an update to mention that. > > > My comment was less about this actual patch and more about the new > reality of patches being backported to stable based on Sasha's tooling, > which seems to be much more liberal than anything we've done previously. > > I don't generally have any objection to that process, though it possibly > could have been more widely announced. But, it would be good if > stable-kernel-rules.txt was updated to mention it. > > I've had several people ask me "hey my patch got backported to stable > but I didn't ask for it - is that OK, what's going on?" etc. Why didn't those people just ask us? To not do so is very strange, it's not like we are hard to find :) > I guess I should just send a patch to update it, but I don't really know > what it should say. I don't think it really needs any changes, as the selftests is just a corner case that is easily explained if anyone cares enough to actually ask :) thanks, greg k-h