What were the notable Linux updates?

Merge tag 'net-7.1-rc3' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/netdev/net, veth: fix OOB txq access in veth_poll() with asymmetric queue counts, and Merge tag 'sound-7.1-rc3' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tiwai/sound.

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The Wire · Showcase

KERNEL RC3 LANDS WITH NETWORKING AND AUDIO FIXES, VETH ASYMMETRY BUG PATCHED

By RepoJournal · Filed 06:02 UTC on May 8, 2026 · About Linux

The 7.1-rc3 merge window closes with critical fixes across networking, sound, and SELinux—including a nasty out-of-bounds queue access bug in veth that could corrupt XDP redirects.

Linus pulled net-7.1-rc3 [1] with fixes spanning Netfilter, IPsec, Bluetooth, and WiFi, plus corrections to recently-landed resizable hash tables that were causing regressions. The veth driver caught a serious bug [2] where asymmetric queue pairs would cause out-of-bounds access during XDP redirect operations—if a peer device has fewer TX queues than RX queues, the ring index calculation overflows, corrupting the transmit path. Sound subsystem also landed rc3 [3] fixing race conditions in deferred fasync checks and UMP group filtering in the sequencer, along with codec-specific cleanups in cs35l56 and tas2. SELinux merged policy file handling improvements [4] that allow multiple concurrent opens to /sys/fs/selinux/policy without blocking readers. The sparx5 network driver [5] got a fix for uninitialized serdes configuration on 1000BASE-X ports that was leaving devices pointed at high-speed blocks instead of shadow 2.5G devices.

Action items

→ If you're running veth with asymmetric queue counts and XDP redirects, apply the queue access fix immediately torvalds/linux [immediate]
→ Rebase any in-flight netdev patches on rc3 to catch resizable hash table corrections torvalds/linux [plan]
→ Monitor sparx5 devices for port initialization after applying 1000BASE-X serdes fix torvalds/linux [monitor]

References

[1] Merge tag 'net-7.1-rc3' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/netdev/net torvalds/linux
[2] veth: fix OOB txq access in veth_poll() with asymmetric queue counts torvalds/linux
[3] Merge tag 'sound-7.1-rc3' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tiwai/sound torvalds/linux
[4] Merge tag 'selinux-pr-20260507' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/pcmoore/selinux torvalds/linux
[5] net: sparx5: configure serdes for 1000BASE-X in sparx5_port_init() torvalds/linux

Quick answers

What shipped in Linux on May 8, 2026?: The 7.1-rc3 merge window closes with critical fixes across networking, sound, and SELinux—including a nasty out-of-bounds queue access bug in veth that could corrupt XDP redirects. In total, 46 commits and 13 pull requests landed.
What were the notable Linux updates?: Merge tag 'net-7.1-rc3' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/netdev/net, veth: fix OOB txq access in veth_poll() with asymmetric queue counts, and Merge tag 'sound-7.1-rc3' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tiwai/sound.

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