Re: CONFIG_MARKERS

Jon Masters
2008-01-23T04:18:19Z

On Tue, 2008-01-22 at 22:10 -0500, Mathieu Desnoyers wrote:
> * Frank Ch. Eigler (fche@redhat.com) wrote:
> >
> > Jon Masters <jcm@redhat.com> writes:
> >
> > > I notice in module.c:
> > >
> > > #ifdef CONFIG_MARKERS
> > > if (!mod->taints)
> > > marker_update_probe_range(mod->markers,
> > > mod->markers + mod->num_markers, NULL, NULL);
> > > #endif
> > >
> > > Is this an attempt to not set a marker for proprietary modules? [...]
> >
> > I can't seem to find any discussion about this aspect. If this is the
> > intent, it seems misguided to me. There may instead be a relationship
> > to TAINT_FORCED_{RMMOD,MODULE}. Mathieu?
> >
> > - FChE
>
> On my part, its mostly a matter of not crashing the kernel when someone
> tries to force modprobe of a proprietary module (where the checksums
> doesn't match) on a kernel that supports the markers. Not doing so
> causes the markers to try to find the marker-specific information in
> struct module which doesn't exist and OOPSes.
>
> Christoph's point of view is rather more drastic than mine : it's not
> interesting for the kernel community to help proprietary modules writers,
> so it's a good idea not to give them marker support. (I CC'ed him so he
> can clarify his position).

Right. I thought that was your collective opinion, and I happen to
personally agree with you, but my question was more that you should be
explicitly comparing to whether it's proprietary and not just whether
the taints field is set - there are other flags in there too.

Jon.