KSMBD Declared Stable - No Longer "Experimental" - In Linux 6.6

[phoronix]

Phoronix: KSMBD Declared Stable - No Longer "Experimental" - In Linux 6.6

Back in 2021 Samsung engineers posted KSMBD as an in-kernel SMB3 server alternative to the likes of the user-space Samba server. KSMBD merged into Linux 5.15 as an experimental SMB server while after two years of fixes and other improvements has now dropped its "experimental" marking...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/KSMBD-Stable-Linux-6.6

[ruff]

So when Emacs will finally be embedded into kernel?

[Old Grouch]

So when Emacs will finally be embedded into kernel?

Surely the question is: When will the kernel be embedded into Emacs? It is cross-platform, after all.

[debrouxl]

At the time of this writing, a search for "ksmbd" on the NVD search page:
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/search/results?form_type=Basic&results_type=overview&quer y=ksmbd&search_type=all&isCpeNameSearch=false
returns 22 CVE-numbered entries, 15 of which are CVE-2023-*, 14 of which were published in July 2023.
Out of the 22 CVE-numbered entries, only 1 has neither a HIGH (red color) nor a CRITICAL (black color) CVSS.

That said, a search for "samba" returns 246 entries, 42 of which were published in 2022 and 2023. The average severity is lower, though, with a higher proportion of MEDIUM and LOW CVSS.

[saladin]

Out of the 22 CVE-numbered entries, only 1 has neither a HIGH (red color) nor a CRITICAL (black color) CVSS.

That said, a search for "samba" returns 246 entries, 42 of which were published in 2022 and 2023. The average severity is lower, though, with a higher proportion of MEDIUM and LOW CVSS.

Looking at the linked CVEs, most of them are race conditions or classic vulnerabilities. But since the 'daemon' runs in kernel mode, almost any programming error with a chance of being exploitable can get a CVE of HIGH. Take CVE-2022-47941 for example: a memory leak is bad, but in the worst case causes a denial-of-service. But in kernel mode, any denial of service could be critical.

I suspect that both projects have similar errors in general, with ksmbd possibly having more locking problems and samba having less due to age.
Doesn't matter to me, NFS is where it's at.

[V1tol]

Can Samba use this module instead of user space implementation?

[Steffo]

Linux is the absolute opposite of a microkernel. Not only from a technical standpoint, but also from a philosophical standpoint. Features, which have not to be implemented in the kernel, are getting implemented in the kernel. This is absolutely unnecessary!

[Old Grouch]

Linux is the absolute opposite of a microkernel. Not only from a technical standpoint, but also from a philosophical standpoint. Features, which have not to be implemented in the kernel, are getting implemented in the kernel. This is absolutely unnecessary!

Kernel modules can dynamically load and unload from the kernel during runtime. So if you are not using ksmbd, you don't need to load it. Linux is not monolithic.

[Steffo]

Kernel modules can dynamically load and unload from the kernel during runtime. So if you are not using ksmbd, you don't need to load it. Linux is not monolithic.

They still operate in the kernel space.

[OneTimeShot]

Let me guess… Microsoft moves SMB out of the Kernel, so now Linux puts SMB into the kerne?

what code red possibly go wrong?