Kernel hardening, BPF arena stacks, and Ally HID support

Security fixes for virtio-net, pagemap scanning, and Ethernet header handling led the day, joined by a large BPF series aimed at Rust compilation and a debate over AI contribution tags. Hardware enablement for ROG Ally devices and memory reclaim completeness also moved forward.

Virtio-net checksum hardening lands in v6

A sixth revision of net patches adds csum_start and offset validation plus early completion paths for virtio-net. The changes block untrusted hardware from altering packets after protocol processing. Virtualization stacks that expose virtio devices gain stronger isolation against post-processing checksum tampering.

BPF arena stack and state-joining verifier

An 81-patch series proposes stack support inside the BPF arena together with a verifier pass that joins states. The combination is intended to allow direct compilation of Rust programs into BPF. The scale of the change makes it a key checkpoint for eBPF language and tooling evolution.

PAGEMAP_SCAN use-after-free fix

A patch pins mm_users inside do_pagemap_scan to close a use-after-free. The race stems from missing mmget_not_zero handling on hugetlb VMAs when a process exits concurrently. Callers of the PAGEMAP_SCAN ioctl under memory pressure receive a necessary lifetime guarantee.

Linear Ethernet headers before eth_type_trans

A six-patch net series forces short Ethernet headers to be pulled linear before eth_type_trans. It corrects skb header invariant violations in tc and OVS header-pop paths that previously triggered kernel BUG checks. Network datapaths that manipulate headers regain a stable linear-header contract.

Assisted-by tag deprecation debate

A documentation patch removes Assisted-by references after the Maintainers Summit decision. Twenty participants discuss disclosure rules and practical detection of LLM-generated contributions. Kernel process norms around AI assistance are being clarified in public.

HID support for ROG Ally handhelds

Version 11 of an hid-asus series adds full gamepad support for ASUS ROG Ally devices, covering force feedback, remapping, curves, and turbo. The features have already seen years of downstream use. Linux handheld gaming gains native driver coverage for these controls.

Per-node proactive reclaim covers all zones

A vmscan patch makes per-node proactive reclaim walk every zone, including ZONE_MOVABLE. Multiple Reviewed-by and Acked-by tags accompany the change. Proactive reclaim policies now treat movable memory consistently with the rest of the node.

KALLSYMS_QUERY ioctl for symbol lookup

A bpf-next series introduces a KALLSYMS_QUERY ioctl on /proc/kallsyms for direct symbol queries. Libbpf integration and selftests accompany the interface so full file parsing can be avoided. BPF tooling and other kallsyms consumers obtain a lower-overhead lookup path.