Linux Kernel 4.2 Released With Improved Cryptography

Earlier this week, after eight release candidates, Linux Kernel 4.2 is available. According to the Linux founder Linus Torvalds, only a few fixes were needed in the last week’s release. This hints at the fact that this delay and comparatively longer release cycle was largely the result of Linus Torvalds’ cautionary steps.

In the release note, Linus writes: “So judging by how little happened this week, it wouldn’t have been a mistake to release 4.2 last week after all, but hey, there’s certainly a few fixes here, and it’s not like delaying 4.2 for a week should have caused any problems either.”

After the general availability, Linux Kernel 4.2 brings great features like the Jitter Entropy Random Number Generator. This makes random number generation more secure than ever. The other updates are:

. Chacha20, RFC7539 and Poly 1305 support
. Jitter RNG
. Default crypto random number generator API is now DRBG
. 842 compression
. New driver for GENEVE protocol
. Introduction of queue-based spinlocks 
. New Linux security module stacking

Linus adds in his message: “So here it is, and the merge window for 4.3 is now open. I already have a few pending early pull requests, but as usual I’ll start processing them tomorrow and give the release some time to actually sit. Go get it.”

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