

Kernel.org is back online

The kernel.org web servers are back on line and are once again delivering the Git repositories of some Linux developers – including the main repository of the development branch of Linux maintained by Linus Torvalds. However, the frontpage links to the archives with the sources for the Linux kernel point to files that have yet to be uploaded. Following four weeks of downtime, kernel.org is thus at least partially back in business. The administrators took the servers offline for maintenance work around a month ago, following the discovery in late August that an attacker had obtained access to some servers.

Some kernel.org services remain unavailable, however, and are expected to be restored over the next few weeks. Some of the subsystem wikis are also unavailable, as is the bugzilla.kernel.org bug tracking system. There is as yet no reference to kernels 3.0.5 and 3.0.6, released on Monday night, on the main kernel.org page, but they are available via Git. The domains are likely to remain unavailable to some users until word of the DNS changes gets out to all corners of the web, which could still take several hours.

According to a short statement in the news section of the main kernel.org page, the administrators have made some changes to server structure to improve the web site for developers and users. As announced previously, developers no longer have shell access to Git repositories. Kernel developers need to create PGP/GPG keys for accessing kernel.org and get them signed by other developers to create a web of trust. Developers are also being advised to ensure that there is no malware hanging around on their systems. The kernel.org administrators are promising a report providing details of the intrusion "in the future".

Following the delays caused by the incident, kernel development should gradually get back to normal. Torvalds and some other developers have temporarily been using other sites, such as GitHub, to host their Git repositories for Linux and Linux-related software. As a result, it is looking increasingly likely that Torvalds will, as was hinted on releasing RC7, release Linux kernel 3.1 in one to two weeks time.

(ehe)