Virtually Attend FOSDEM 2026

This live demo shows how to pick a real syzbot-reported bug and reproduce it locally in under five minutes using virtme-ng. No disk images, no complex QEMU setup—just build, reproduce and verify the fix. Perfect for anyone who wants to turn kernel fuzzing reports into real patches. Important note: I am going to use pre-built upstream kernel containing a bug due to the talk time constarins. Hovewer, steps to rebuild an upstream kernel and use it in virtme-ng will be described.

Full Description: syzbot continually discovers kernel issues, but reproducing them can be slow or intimidating. In this lightning talk, we’ll use virtme-ng to rebuild a mainline kernel and instantly run a real syzbot reproducer inside an ephemeral VM. We’ll trigger the crash, inspect the backtrace, apply the upstream fix, and rerun the test to verify the resolution—all live. This workflow reduces setup time from hours to minutes and lowers the entry barrier for new contributors. Every attendee will leave knowing how to reproduce syzbot bugs safely and efficiently on their own system.

Live Experiments & Demonstrations:

• Select an active syzbot issue (syzbot.appspot.com) and show its reproducer.
• Build a mainline kernel and launch it via virtme-run --kdir . --repro repro.c.
• Trigger the crash and display kernel backtrace.
• Apply the upstream patch or manual fix.
• Re-run the reproducer and verify crash disappearance.

Key Points:

• Use virtme-ng for instant kernel test environments.
• Run real syzbot reproducer without manual QEMU setup.
• Observe, patch, and verify kernel bugs live.
• Encourage new contributors to validate fuzzing results.
• Demonstrate a fully reproducible workflow in < 5 minutes.