[pca] can patch 147440-09 be trusted ?

[Dennis Clarke]

I guess really the question is, can MOS and Oracle be trusted to provide a
kernel patch that won't make things far worse?

The reason I ask, and would love to hear from others that patch multiple tiers
of servers ( you know, production, testing, development etc etc ), is that I
actually read the kernel patch README's. In the past that seemed to be a good
policy. I could actually see the bugids affected and then determine if it was
reasonable to apply the patch on the test level servers or rush to get it into
the prod level. Patch 147440-09 is less than thrilling.

Here is the bugid list in the README :

6878961 problem with NFS
6927023 need support for AMD family 15h processor
6932919 need support for AMD's family 15h ISA enhancements
7030516 hpet_acpi_init() should be called only if hpet is really required
7047435 'genunix: WARNING: preconfig failed: disk' when configure hard disk driv
e for removal
7105132 deadman panic on a T3-1

Well gee, "problem with NFS" means what exactly? Does it mean that unless you
apply this patch you have a security issue or a pending kernel panic and core
dump? The other bugids apply support for the bulldozer AMD chip and that's a
good thing since HP has been shipping those for a while.

Would be cool to see what this "problem with NFS" is all about. However when I
login to MOS that bugid is not even listed. See image attached. I can see this
bugid :

https://supporthtml.oracle.com/ep/faces/secure/km/BugDisplay.jspx?id=7047435

Which is in the README but NOT on the MOS page for this kernel patch.

If I try to see
https://supporthtml.oracle.com/ep/faces/secure/km/BugDisplay.jspx?id=6878961 I
get a warm and fuzzy "The Bug ID is invalid or you do not have permission to
view the bug". The same goes for bugid 6382683 which is listed on the MOS page
but NOT in the README.

Seriously, can Oracle be trusted or is this a case of "trust us, we know, you
don't, and you don't need to know."  Because that really does not fly well
with me.

Dennis


-- 
--
http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=vindex&search=0x1D936C72FA35B44B
+-------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Dennis Clarke           | Solaris and Linux and Open Source |
| dclarke at blastwave.org   | Respect for open standards.       |
+-------------------------+-----------------------------------+
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