Linus Torvalds Linux 5.10 Kernel Addressing Set Fs Coding Developer 1536x977 Esm W900

Linux creator Linus Torvalds has hailed the removal of defunct addressing function set_fs() in 5.10. Set_fs(), which has featured in the kernel since its early days, has been the source of many security vulnerabilities over the years.

 

In his weekly kernel update, Torvalds said:

“The most interesting – to me – change here is Christoph’s setf_fs() removal (it got merged through Al Viro, as you can see in my mergelog below).

It’s not a _huge_ change, but it’s interesting because the whole model of set_fs() to specify whether a userspace copy actually goes to user space or kernel space goes back to pretty much the original release of Linux, and while the name is entirely historic (it hasn’t used the %fs segment register in a long time), the concept has remained. Until now.”