Xenial HWE kernel also available for Ubuntu 14.04.5 LTS

Dec 16, 2017 14:25 GMT  ·  By

Canonical has released new kernel updates for its long-term supported Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) and Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (Trusty Tahr) operating systems series to fix a regression.

Last week, Canonical released a kernel update for the Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) operating system patching a total of four security issues, including a use-after-free vulnerability in the Netlink subsystem (XFRM), an out-of-bounds read in the GTCO digitizer USB driver, a bug in the associative array implementation, and improper copy-on-write (COW) handling of transparent huge pages.

However, it would appear that the respective kernel update also introduced a regression, which apparently prevented the use of the Ceph network file system on machines that upgraded to the new kernel versions. Canonical patched the issue and released a new Linux kernel update that addresses the problem on all Ubuntu 16.04 LTS systems, as well as Ubuntu 14.04.5 LTS machines.

Users are urged to update their systems immediately

The regression affects all supported kernels on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) systems and derivatives, including the 64-bit and 32-bit kernels, Linux kernel for Raspberry Pi 2 devices (linux-raspi2), Linux kernel for Amazon Web Services (AWS) systems (linux-aws), Linux kernel for cloud environments (linux-kvm), and Linux kernel for Snapdragon processors (linux-snapdragon).

Canonical also provides an updated Xenial HWE (Hardware Enablement) Linux kernel for Ubuntu 14.04.5 LTS (Trusty Tahr) systems and derivatives. Users are urged to update their computers to the new kernel versions listed on the latest security advisory published by the company. Details on how to update your system are provided at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Security/Upgrades.

We recommend updating your Ubuntu installations immediately, and always remember to keep your computers up-to-date at all times!