Kernel release status

The current 2.6 development kernel is 2.6.26-rc5, released on June 4. As is usual at this point in the release cycle, it is mostly bug fixes and the like. There are a fair number of changes in the core kernel code, mostly for scheduler issues, including some reverts for some performance regressions. "Another week, another batch of mostly pretty small fixes. Hopefully the regression list is shrinking, and we've fixed at least a couple of the oopses on Arjan's list." See the long-format changelog for all the details. A 2.6.26-rc6 release is probably coming soon.

The current -mm tree is 2.6.26-rc5-mm2 which is a bug fix for 2.6.26-rc5-mm1, also released this week. The main additions are the unprivileged mounts tree and a "large number of deep changes to memory management."

The current stable 2.6 kernel is 2.6.25.6, released on June 9. It has a whole pile of bugfixes, with none that are specifically called out as security related. "It contains a number of assorted bugfixes all over the tree. Users are encouraged to update." See the LWN announcement for some discussion about potential security issues with this release. Also, note that 2.6.25.5 was released on June 7 with "one security bug fix. If you are using CIFS or SNMP NAT you could be vulnerable and are encouraged to upgrade."

For older kernels: 2.4.36.6 was released on June 6. "It only fixes a vulnerability in the netfilter ip_nat_snmp_basic module (CVE-2008-1673). If you don't use it, you don't need to upgrade."