From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Wed, 5 Sep 2001 05:57:23 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Wed, 5 Sep 2001 05:57:12 -0400 Received: from mail.webmaster.com ([216.152.64.131]:23967 "EHLO shell.webmaster.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Wed, 5 Sep 2001 05:56:58 -0400 From: "David Schwartz" To: "Alex Bligh - linux-kernel" Cc: Subject: RE: Linux 2.4.9-ac6 Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2001 02:57:17 -0700 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2911.0) In-Reply-To: <1257554973.999687013@[169.254.198.40]> Importance: Normal X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2600.0000 Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org > >> I think, perhaps, the logic should be that a module > >> shouldn't taint the kernel if: > >> 1) The user built the module from source on that machine, OR > >> 2) The module source is freely available without restriction > > I just realized two things. One, there's a strong argument that this > > should be an AND, not an OR. > And as all distributions would fail (1) in initial form, all > distributions would result in tainted kernels. Is this the > intent? They wouldn't taint because the kernel signature would match the module signatures. I provided more detail on one possible way this scheme would work and it's not quite as simple as the summary above suggests. Basically, when you compile (or install) the kernel, a random 'signature' goes in. When you compile a module, the signature goes in too. You can then compare the module's signature to the kernel's signature to ensure they were compiled as a unit. Unfortunately, this doesn't ensure that the user has the source. I suppose, if the module source were freely available, then '2' would apply. If you keep it as an OR, then distributions wouldn't taint out of the box unless they included modules whose source distribution was limited. I think this is what you want. DS