Re: [PATCH 3/3] Documentation: clarify the mandatory and desirable info for security reports

Willy Tarreau
2026-04-02T19:03:38Z

Hi Randy,

On Thu, Apr 02, 2026 at 11:50:00AM -0700, Randy Dunlap wrote:
>
> On 4/2/26 11:26 AM, Willy Tarreau wrote:
> > A significant part of the effort of the security team consists in begging
> > reporters for patch proposals, or asking them to provide them in regular
> > format, and most of the time they're willing to provide this, they just
> > didn't know that it would help. So let's add a section detailing the
> > required and desirable contents in a security report to help reporters
> > write more actionable reports which do not require round trips.
> >
> > Cc: Eric Dumazet <edumazet@google.com>
> > Cc: Greg KH <greg@kroah.com>
> > Signed-off-by: Willy Tarreau <w@1wt.eu>
> > ---
> > Documentation/process/security-bugs.rst | 66 ++++++++++++++++++++++---
> > 1 file changed, 59 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-)
> >
> > diff --git a/Documentation/process/security-bugs.rst b/Documentation/process/security-bugs.rst
> > index 6937fa9fba5a..b243ac24eb12 100644
> > --- a/Documentation/process/security-bugs.rst
> > +++ b/Documentation/process/security-bugs.rst
> > @@ -7,6 +7,65 @@ Linux kernel developers take security very seriously. As such, we'd
> > like to know when a security bug is found so that it can be fixed and
> > disclosed as quickly as possible.
> >
> > +Preparing your report
> > +---------------------
> > +
> > +Like with any bug report, a security bug report requires a lot of analysis work
> > +from the developers, so the more information you can share about the issue, the
> > +better. Please review the procedure outlined in
> > +'Documentation/admin-guide/reporting-issues.rst' if you are unclear about what
>
> Drop the single quote marks.

I just moved this part as-is, and I've been extremely hesitant to change
formatting as I can't easily check the validity of the output.

> > +information is helpful. The following information are absolutely necessary in
> > +**any** security bug report:
> > +
> > + * **affected kernel version range**: with no version indication, your report
> > + will not be processed. A significant part of reports are for bugs that
> > + have already been fixed, so it is extremely important that vulnerabilities
> > + are verified on recent versions (development tree or latest stable
> > + version), at least by verifying that the code has not changed since the
> > + version where it was detected.
> > +
> > + * **description of the problem**: a detailed description of the problem, with
> > + traces showing its manifestation, and why you consider that the observed
> > + behavior as a problem in the kernel, is necessary.
> > +
> > + * **reproducer**: developers will need to be able to reproduce the problem to
> > + consider a fix as effective. This includes both a way to trigger the issue
> > + and a way to confirm it happens. A reproducer with low complexity
> > + dependencies will be needed (source code, shell script, sequence of
> > + instructions, file-system image etc). Binary-only executables are not
> > + accepted. Working exploits are extremely helpful and will not be released
> > + without consent from the reporter, unless they are already public. By
> > + definition if an issue cannot be reproduced, it is not exploitable, thus it
> > + is not a security bug.
> > +
> > + * **conditions**: if the bug depends on certain configuration options,
> > + sysctls, permissions, timing, code modifications etc, these should be
> > + indicated.
> > +
> > +In addition, the following information are highly desirable:
> > +
> > + * **suspected location of the bug**: the file names and functions where the
> > + bug is suspected to be present are very important, at least to help forward
> > + the report to the appropriate maintainers. When not possible (for example,
> > + "system freezes each time I run this command"), the security team will help
> > + identify the source of the bug.
> > +
> > + * **a proposed fix**: bug reporters who have analyzed the cause of a bug in
> > + the source code almost always have an accurate idea on how to fix it,
> > + because they spent a long time studying it and its implications. Proposing
> > + a tested fix will save maintainers a lot of time, even if the fix ends up
> > + not being the right one, because it helps understand the bug. When
> > + proposing a tested fix, please always format it in a way that can be
> > + immediately merged (see :doc:`regular patch submission
> > + <../process/submitting-patches>`). This will save some back-and-forth
>
> Hm, I don't see anything in submitting-patches.rst called "regular patch submission".
> Is it in some other patch?

Not sure what you mean. Is this supposed to be a sub-section and not just a
title ? On https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/process/security-bugs.html
it appears as the title. This one was already present in the same document
and was moved there without a change.

Thanks a lot for your help!
Willy