Kernel that has Spectre and Meltdown support

[T_Dodd]

Hi everyone...my first post! I have a question about kernels. I googled and searched about this topic, but it is confusing to me. I downloaded Mint 18.03 last week and installed along side Windows 10 and all is well. I then noticed last night my kernel was 4.10. and my system was very fast with Linux. I then noticed through the update manager to ugrade to 4.15. I did so and my system slowed to a crawl. I went back to the old kernel and my fast system returned. I then noticed the 4.10 kernel is End Of Life. I tried kernel 4.4.0.131 and my system (3 year old laptop) is a bit slow but good. I thought this may mean that the 4.4 kernel has Spectre and Meltdown protection? Sorry I searched and could not find a easy answer. I chose this kernel because of long term support and the age of my laptop. The 4.15 is too slow even though I see it has Spectre and Meltdown protection. Thank you in advance! My first real spin with Linux.

[DAMIEN1307]

hi T_Dodd...the latest kernels in the 4.4 series do have the spectre/meltdown mitigations...once you are using this kernel run these 2 codes, in your terminal and post the results back here...the first code will tell us what microcodes are present for kernel usage...the 2nd one confirms that mitigations have been made...i will post below what mine looks like keeping in mind im running 4.15 kernel but you will get the idea...DAMIEN


damien@damien ~ $ dpkg -l | grep microcode
ii amd64-microcode 3.20180524.1~ubuntu0.18.04.2 amd64 Processor microcode firmware for AMD CPUs
ii intel-microcode 3.20180703.2 amd64 Processor microcode firmware for Intel CPUs
ii iucode-tool 2.3.1-1 amd64 Intel processor microcode tool


damien@damien ~ $ grep . /sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/*
/sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/meltdown:Mitigation: PTI
/sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/spec_store_bypass:Vulnerable
/sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/spectre_v1:Mitigation: __user pointer sanitization
/sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/spectre_v2:Mitigation: Full generic retpoline, IBPB, IBRS_FW
damien@damien ~ $

[T_Dodd]

Hey Damien thanks for getting back to me.I could not get the first command to show results, but here is the second one:

bj@bj-X550JD ~ $ grep . /sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/*
/sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/meltdown:Mitigation: PTI
/sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/spec_store_bypass:Vulnerable
/sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/spectre_v1:Mitigation: __user pointer sanitization
/sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/spectre_v2:Mitigation: Full generic retpoline

However, under driver manager it is ticked "do not update the CPU microcode" the NVIDIA driver in use is the generic one. I did not change these. Hope all this helps you.

[DAMIEN1307]

it would be a good idea to untic the microcode update because the microcode is what contains the mitigations for spectre/meldown and they have had some updates since january as they find out that more mitigations have been necessary...the nvidia driver is up to you...if your graphics are working fine, good...but if you want to have the latest update for that, i believe it is the "390" that works best...dont forget to reboot after changes...DAMIEN

[T_Dodd]

Took you advice and did what you suggested. Looks like I am covered for the two vulnerabilities from my similar terminal read out as yours.. Thank you