-next status as at v7.1-rc6

[Linus Torvalds]

On Thu, 4 Jun 2026 at 15:23, Paul Moore <paul at paul-moore.com> wrote:
>
> While you didn't reply to any of my comments explaining how Hornet
> works, specifically how it ties into the kernel, I'm assuming you've
> read the overview.  Can you help those of us in the LSM space
> understand why a BPF dev's NACK on code that lives strictly under
> security/ is sufficient grounds to reject an LSM patch?

Honestly, I'm not competent to make a judgment call between two
different models for hash chain verification, so I basically *have* to
go by maintainer opinions.

And the discussions I have been cc'd on have not been what I'd call
enlightening.

But people have pointed out that the LSM code mucks around with bpf
internals, and those NAK's have had reasons for them.

And honestly, I don't understand *why* Hornet does what it does - and
does it in ways that obviously annoy the bpf people. There is no
*reason* to look at the bpf maps that I can see, and from my
understanding of Alexei's arguments (which may be lacking), the fact
that Hornet does that is the main reason for the NAK.

But instead of working with the bpf people on coming up with some
model that does *not* do that, it all seems to have become a "we'll do
it anyway, despite maintainer complaints".

And I *did* see the bpf people pointing to "this would be an
acceptable alternative" with KP Singh outlining something that *had*
been discussed.

But I never actually saw anybody say "ok, we'll try that instead".

Maybe I missed it.

But from what I saw, it really looked like "I see NAK's from three
different bpf maintainers, with suggested alternate approaches". None
of which resulted in anything that looked like "ok, we'll try to
follow your guidance", only more of the same.

Why would *my* input then make any difference?

The bpf people's arguments resonated more with me. For example, the
whole "we need to know if it passed the bpf signature" seems to be
complate pointless silliness, and the bpf peoples responses to that
resonated with me. There's *no* point in any LSM check whether the
signature passed or not, since if it didn't pass, it's not getting
loaded.

So that's basically where I stand - I've seen disagreement, and I've
seen what looks to me like reasonable push-back, and I've not really
seen the LSM response as taking it into account.

           Linus