Re: [PATCH] ima: debugging late_initcall_sync measurements

Paul Moore
2026-05-04T20:52:09Z

On Mon, May 4, 2026 at 8:03 AM Mimi Zohar <zohar@linux.ibm.com> wrote:
> On Sun, 2026-05-03 at 12:46 -0400, Paul Moore wrote:
> > Regardless, assuming you always want IMA to leverage a TPMs when they
> > exist, your reply suggests that using an initcall based IMA init
> > scheme, even a late-sync initcall, may not be sufficient because
> > deferred TPM initialization could happen later, yes?
>
> Well yeah. The TPM could be configured as a module, but that scenario is not of
> interest. That's way too late. The case being addressed in this patch set is
> when the TPM driver tries to initialize at device_initcall, returns
> EPROBE_DEFER, and is retried at deferred_probe_initcall (late_initcall). Since
> ordering within an initcall is not supported, this patch attempts to initialize
> IMA at late_initcall and similarly retries, in this case, at late_initcall_sync.

Okay, so from a TPM initialization perspective you are satisfied with
a late-sync IMA initialization, yes?

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