[CentOS] /lib/firmware/microcode.dat update on CentOS 6

Wed Jan 24 21:22:24 UTC 2018
Chris Adams <linux at cmadams.net>

Once upon a time, Chris Murphy <lists at colorremedies.com> said:
> "We recommend that OEMs, cloud service providers, system
> manufacturers, software vendors and end users stop deployment of
> current versions."  Current versions of what? Microcode?

Well, that's the only thing Intel provides for CPUs, so that's all it
can be.

> What these means for people who have CPUs which were not crashing
> (rebooting being a new euphemism for crashing) , but saw variant 2
> Spectre mitigation with the 20180108 microcode, will lose full
> mitigation until Intel gets its ducks into a row.

Lots of people weren't seeing issues, but that's in part because Intel's
updated microcode release only actually updated microcode for recent
CPUs.  I have many servers that aren't crashing, but that's because
Intel hasn't actually even tried to fix the microcode for their CPUs
yet.

-- 
Chris Adams <linux at cmadams.net>