About fix for meltdown and spectre will affect your server performance!

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FIX FOR MELTDOWN AND SPECTRE WILL AFFECT YOUR SERVER PERFORMANCE!

January 9, 2018

Microsoft, Apple and several Linux distros started to distribute patches to try to fix the recent security flaws found in Intel, AMD and ARM CPUs, in almost every CPU released in the last 20 years. The security flaws are known as Meltdown (affects Intel) and Spectre (affects Intel, AMD and some ARM processors).

The flaw allow softwares to access protected memory areas that should be accessed only by the Operating System kernel, and get sensitive data, like passwords, etc.

There are two problems with the fixes:

  1. They do not fix 100% of the problem, since it is related on how the CPUs were designed. So far, there is no 100% solution for the problem, and probably it will never exists.
  2. They impact badly in performance.
In a recent post to firebird-devel list, an user reported that the performance of the Firebird server dropped ~30% after he upgraded its Linux kernel to a version that “fix” those security flaws.

https://sourceforge.net/p/firebird/mailman/message/36183029/

General reports over the internet shows that the most affected areas of the system are CPU, RAM and Disk, so any software that makes intensive use of some of those areas will probably have its performance significantly degraded.

Just to be clear: this performance loss doesn’t affect only Firebird, but any software!
 
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Microsoft halts distribution of Spectre & Meltdown fixes on AMD systems after reports of unbootable PCs
JANUARY 9, 2018

It appears that Microsoft and AMD have messed things up. According to reports, a number PC systems with AMD’s processors were boot failing after installing the Spectre and Meltdown fixes. Microsoft investigated those reports and discovered that some AMD chipsets are getting into an unbootable state after applying those fixes. As a result of that, Microsoft has stopped distributing these fixes on AMD systems.

As Microsoft noted:

“Microsoft has reports of customers with some AMD devices getting into an unbootable state after installing recent Windows operating system security updates. After investigating, Microsoft has determined that some AMD chipsets do not conform to the documentation previously provided to Microsoft to develop the Windows operating system mitigations to protect against the chipset vulnerabilities known as Spectre and Meltdown.”

To prevent AMD customers from getting into an unbootable state, Microsoft has temporarily paused sending the following Windows operating system updates to devices with impacted AMD processors at this time:

January 3, 2018—KB4056897 (Security-only update)
January 9, 2018—KB4056894 (Monthly Rollup)
January 3, 2018—KB4056888 (OS Build 10586.1356)
January 3, 2018—KB4056892 (OS Build 16299.192)
January 3, 2018—KB4056891 (OS Build 15063.850)
January 3, 2018—KB4056890 (OS Build 14393.2007)
January 3, 2018—KB4056898 (Security-only update)
January 3, 2018—KB4056893 (OS Build 10240.17735)
January 9, 2018—KB4056895 (Monthly Rollup)

Microsoft concluded that it is working with AMD to resolve this issue and resume Windows OS security updates to the affected AMD devices via Windows Update and WSUS.

Those affected by the aforementioned booting issues can follow these links in order to – possibly and hopefully – resolve their issues:

Troubleshoot blue screen errors in Windows 10
Resolving Blue Screen errors in Windows 8.1
Resolving stop (blue screen) errors in Windows 7

...more info here:

http://www.dsogaming.com/news/micro...-amd-systems-after-reports-of-unbootable-pcs/
 
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