14 DAY TRIAL // The developers of the security- and container-oriented CoreOS GNU/Linux operating system have updated all three channels of the distribution to patch the OS against the well-known "Dirty COW" Linux kernel vulnerability.
CoreOS 1122.3.0 is now the current stable version of the Linux-based operating system, shipping with a fix for the privilege escalation vulnerability in Linux kernel that's fully documented at CVE-2016-5195, as well as a patch for a denial of service (DoS) issue with the systemd init system, documented at CVE-2016-7795.
On the other hand, the Beta channel of CoreOS is now at version 1185.2.0, and the Alpha channel at version 1192.2.0, also shipping with the patches mentioned above, but running a more recent kernel from the now deprecated Linux 4.7 branch, build 4.7.3, as CoreOS 1122.3.0 is using Linux kernel 4.7.0.
Docker 1.12.1 is used in CoreOS 1192.2.0 Alpha
As for the software versions included in the new CoreOS builds, we can mention that CoreOS 1122.3.0 ships with the rkt 1.8.0 App Container runtime for Linux, Docker 1.10.3 app container engine, etcd 0.4.9 and 2.3.2 service discovery tools, fleet 0.11.7 distributed init system, as well as systemd 229.
CoreOS 1185.2.0 Beta and CoreOS 1192.2.0 Alpha are shipping with more recent software versions, including rkt 1.14.0, versions 0.4.9 and 2.3.7 of etcd, fleet 0.11.8, and systemd 231. While CoreOS 1185.2.0 Beta is using Docker 1.11.2, the more recent Docker 1.12.1 is used in CoreOS 1192.2.0 Alpha.
You can download all three editions right now from the official CoreOS website, as well as via ours. As always, we recommend all users to use the stable CoreOS branch, which should be upgraded to the 1122.3.0 version as soon as possible. The Beta and Alpha channels are for testing purposes only and early adopters.