Spohnz Tech News Digest – July 28, 2025
📢 Touch eyeballs to screen for cheap laser surgery
Security updates for Monday
Category: Linux
Tags: Linux, Red Hat
Published: Mon, 28 Jul 2025 14:29:54 +0000
TL;DR: Here is a 2-sentence summary:
Multiple Linux distributions, including Debian, Fedora, Red Hat, SUSE, and Ubuntu, have issued security updates to fix various vulnerabilities in packages such as audiofile, glibc, kernel, thunderbird, and more. The updated packages aim to improve system security and protect against potential attacks or exploits.
Security updates have been issued by Debian (audiofile, libcaca, libetpan, libxml2, php7.4, snapcast, and thunderbird), Fedora (glibc, iputils, mingw-binutils, and thunderbird), Red Hat (kernel, kernel-rt, mod_auth_openidc, and mod_auth_openidc:2.3), SUSE (afterburn, apache2, atop, chromedriver, chromium, cloud-init, deepin-feature-enable, firefox, firefox-esr, grafana, grype-db, gstreamer-plugins-bad, javamail, jupyter-jupyterlab-templates, jupyter-nbdime, konsole, libetebase, libxmp, minio-client-20250721T052808Z, MozillaFirefox, MozillaFirefox-branding-SLE, opera, pdns-recursor, perl-Authen-SASL, polkit, python-Django, python3-pycares, python311-starlette, rpi-imager, ruby3.4-rubygem-thor, spdlog, thunderbird, varnish, viewvc, and xtrabackup), and Ubuntu (openjdk-21-crac).
Read more: https://lwn.net/Articles/1031667/
LWN is back
Category: Linux
Tags: General
Published: Mon, 28 Jul 2025 10:27:58 +0000
TL;DR: Here is a summary of the text in 2 sentences:
Due to issues at Linode's data center, the service was temporarily moved to an emergency backup server, which may experience occasional glitches. However, after an update, the service has been restored to its regular production server and appears stable once again.
The good folks at Linode still have not managed to fix whatever broke in their data center, so we are running on an emergency backup server. Things seem to be working, but the occasional glitch is to be expected. Please accept our apologies for the extended downtime!
Update: we're back on the regular production server, and all seems stable now.
Read more: https://lwn.net/Articles/1031536/
The 6.16 kernel is out
Category: Linux
Tags: Linux
Published: Mon, 28 Jul 2025 03:42:18 +0000
TL;DR: Here is a summary of the article in 2 sentences:
Linus Torvalds has released the Linux kernel version 6.16, which includes several headline changes such as enabling five-level page tables on x86 systems and core-dump changes that allow sending core dumps to a socket. The release also features new features like atomic-write support for XFS, elimination of block-layer bounce buffering, and a new DMA-mapping API, among other changes.
Linus has released the 6.16 kernel:
It's Sunday afternoon, and the release cycle has come to an end. Last week was nice and calm, and there were no big show-stopper surprises to keep us from the regular schedule, so I've tagged and pushed out 6.16 as planned.
Headline changes in this release include enabling five-level page tables by default on x86 systems, a number of core-dump changes including the ability to send core dumps to a socket, the ability to create pipes in io_uring, atomic-write support in the XFS filesystem, the elimination of block-layer bounce buffering, a new DMA-mapping API, an option to block file descriptors passed in via Unix-domain sockets, and more.
See the LWN merge-window summaries (part 1, part 2) and the KernelNewbies 6.16 page for more information.
Read more: https://lwn.net/Articles/1031534/
[$] Rethinking the Linux cloud stack for confidential VMs
Category: Linux
Tags: General
Published: Fri, 25 Jul 2025 14:55:01 +0000
TL;DR: Here is a 2-sentence summary:
The public cloud has inherent limitations on privacy because even with virtual machine isolation, nothing is ultimately out of reach for the host provider. To achieve true confidentiality, confidential computing technology is needed to protect guest memory from even hypervisors, requiring a rethinking of the Linux cloud stack to balance performance and security.
There is an inherent limit to the privacy of the public cloud. While Linux can isolate virtual machines (VMs) from each other, nothing in the system's memory is ultimately out of reach for the host cloud provider. To accommodate the most privacy-conscious clients, confidential computing protects the memory of guests, even from hypervisors. But the Linux cloud stack needs to be rethought in order to host confidential VMs, juggling two goals that are often at odds: performance and security.
Read more: https://lwn.net/Articles/1030818/
Security updates for Friday
Category: Linux
Tags: Linux, Red Hat
Published: Fri, 25 Jul 2025 13:03:07 +0000
TL;DR: Here is a 2-sentence summary:
Multiple Linux distributions have released security updates to address vulnerabilities, including AlmaLinux, Fedora, Oracle, Red Hat, SUSE, and Ubuntu. The updates affect various components such as git, kernel, nginx, sudo, and others, aiming to improve the overall security of these operating systems.
Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (git, kernel, nginx:1.24, and sudo), Fedora (dpkg, java-21-openjdk, java-25-openjdk, java-latest-openjdk, and valkey), Oracle (apache-commons-vfs, sudo, tigervnc, and xorg-x11-server), Red Hat (kernel, krb5, and openssh), SUSE (gnutls, ImageMagick, iputils, kernel-livepatch-MICRO-6-0-RT_Update_10, kubernetes1.18, libarchive, ovmf, python, and salt), and Ubuntu (iputils, linux-aws-6.14, linux-raspi, openjdk-21, and openjdk-24).
Read more: https://lwn.net/Articles/1031426/
OPNsense 25.7 Brings Revamped GUI and New Firewall Tools
Category: Linux Today
Tags: General
Published: Mon, 28 Jul 2025 15:06:59 +0000
TL;DR: Here is a summary of the text in 2 sentences:
OPNsense 25.7, an open-source firewall and routing platform, has been released with a refreshed frontend, SFTP backups, and FreeBSD 14.3 as its underlying operating system. The update brings a revamped GUI and new firewall tools to users.
OPNsense 25.7 open-source firewall and routing platform is out now, featuring a refreshed frontend, SFTP backups, and FreeBSD 14.3 under the hood.
The post OPNsense 25.7 Brings Revamped GUI and New Firewall Tools appeared first on Linux Today.
Read more: https://www.linuxtoday.com/blog/opnsense-25-7-brings-revamped-gui-and-new-firewall-tools/