[PATCH 3/5] docs: security-bugs: clarify what counts as a valid version

Willy Tarreau <[email protected]> Sun, 2 Aug 2026 22:35:38 +0200
Newsgroups org.kernel.vger.workflows,org.kernel.vger.linux-doc,org.kernel.vger.linux-kernel
Message-ID <[email protected]>
Too often we're getting reports saying "still valid in latest mainline"
with no indication of when this was verified, making this indication
pointless. Let's clarify it and insist on having a version or commit ID,
and that the version must necessarily be for a kernel.org kernel and not
a distro one.

Cc: Greg KH <[email protected]>
Signed-off-by: Willy Tarreau <[email protected]>
---
 Documentation/process/security-bugs.rst | 4 ++++
 1 file changed, 4 insertions(+)

diff --git a/Documentation/process/security-bugs.rst b/Documentation/process/security-bugs.rst
index 3c51ddde31dd9..6f7c21515e9ea 100644
--- a/Documentation/process/security-bugs.rst
+++ b/Documentation/process/security-bugs.rst
@@ -18,6 +18,10 @@ information is helpful.  The following information are absolutely necessary in
 **any** security bug report:
 
   * **affected kernel version range**: with no version indication, your report
+    will not be processed.  Note that a time-dependent version such as "latest
+    mainline" is not acceptable.  A stable identifier such as a commit ID or an
+    exact version is required.  Versions designating kernels not coming from
+    kernel.org (such as distro kernels) are meaningless to maintainers and
     will not be processed.  A significant part of reports are for bugs that
     have already been fixed, so it is extremely important that vulnerabilities
     are verified on recent versions (development tree or latest stable
-- 
2.52.0