Re: [PATCH] Linux Kernel Markers Support for Proprierary Modules

Rusty Russell
2008-01-26T03:28:33Z

On Saturday 26 January 2008 02:31:30 Jon Masters wrote:
> On Fri, 2008-01-25 at 08:56 +0100, Jan Engelhardt wrote:
> > So what is needed is an Oops with an explaining message
> > if (kernel_tainted) "blame that proprietary module first",
> > and make sure the user sees that oops even if in X.
>
> The former is actually trivially doable with the module->taints bits. We
> could have the equivalent of a neon flashing "blame this module" sign.
>
> I also agree, we should stop force loading. Incompatible struct module,
> etc. are really bad things to have mapped into a running kernel.

I think there are two things here:
1) Currently we allow modules with no kallsyms info to be loaded into a
KALLSYMS kernel (and taint). A new option is needed to control this:
CONFIG_ACCEPT_NO_KALLSYMS under KERNEL_DEBUG which allows loading of
such "stripped" modules (a-la modprobe --force).

2) Unconditionally reject modules with a wrong module section size. Currently
we have no such check, which means without KALLSYMS, anything goes.

Thoughts?
Rusty.