Adding upstream version 5.10.209.upstream/5.10.209upstream

Signed-off-by: Daniel Baumann <daniel.baumann@progress-linux.org>

1 files changed, 164 insertions, 0 deletions

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+Tainted kernels
+---------------
+
+The kernel will mark itself as 'tainted' when something occurs that might be
+relevant later when investigating problems. Don't worry too much about this,
+most of the time it's not a problem to run a tainted kernel; the information is
+mainly of interest once someone wants to investigate some problem, as its real
+cause might be the event that got the kernel tainted. That's why bug reports
+from tainted kernels will often be ignored by developers, hence try to reproduce
+problems with an untainted kernel.
+
+Note the kernel will remain tainted even after you undo what caused the taint
+(i.e. unload a proprietary kernel module), to indicate the kernel remains not
+trustworthy. That's also why the kernel will print the tainted state when it
+notices an internal problem (a 'kernel bug'), a recoverable error
+('kernel oops') or a non-recoverable error ('kernel panic') and writes debug
+information about this to the logs ``dmesg`` outputs. It's also possible to
+check the tainted state at runtime through a file in ``/proc/``.
+
+
+Tainted flag in bugs, oops or panics messages
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+You find the tainted state near the top in a line starting with 'CPU:'; if or
+why the kernel was tainted is shown after the Process ID ('PID:') and a shortened
+name of the command ('Comm:') that triggered the event::
+
+	BUG: unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at 0000000000000000
+	Oops: 0002 [#1] SMP PTI
+	CPU: 0 PID: 4424 Comm: insmod Tainted: P        W  O      4.20.0-0.rc6.fc30 #1
+	Hardware name: Red Hat KVM, BIOS 0.5.1 01/01/2011
+	RIP: 0010:my_oops_init+0x13/0x1000 [kpanic]
+	[...]
+
+You'll find a 'Not tainted: ' there if the kernel was not tainted at the
+time of the event; if it was, then it will print 'Tainted: ' and characters
+either letters or blanks. In above example it looks like this::
+
+	Tainted: P        W  O
+
+The meaning of those characters is explained in the table below. In this case
+the kernel got tainted earlier because a proprietary Module (``P``) was loaded,
+a warning occurred (``W``), and an externally-built module was loaded (``O``).
+To decode other letters use the table below.
+
+
+Decoding tainted state at runtime
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+At runtime, you can query the tainted state by reading
+``cat /proc/sys/kernel/tainted``. If that returns ``0``, the kernel is not
+tainted; any other number indicates the reasons why it is. The easiest way to
+decode that number is the script ``tools/debugging/kernel-chktaint``, which your
+distribution might ship as part of a package called ``linux-tools`` or
+``kernel-tools``; if it doesn't you can download the script from
+`git.kernel.org <https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/plain/tools/debugging/kernel-chktaint>`_
+and execute it with ``sh kernel-chktaint``, which would print something like
+this on the machine that had the statements in the logs that were quoted earlier::
+
+	Kernel is Tainted for following reasons:
+	 * Proprietary module was loaded (#0)
+	 * Kernel issued warning (#9)
+	 * Externally-built ('out-of-tree') module was loaded  (#12)
+	See Documentation/admin-guide/tainted-kernels.rst in the Linux kernel or
+	 https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/admin-guide/tainted-kernels.html for
+	 a more details explanation of the various taint flags.
+	Raw taint value as int/string: 4609/'P        W  O     '
+
+You can try to decode the number yourself. That's easy if there was only one
+reason that got your kernel tainted, as in this case you can find the number
+with the table below. If there were multiple reasons you need to decode the
+number, as it is a bitfield, where each bit indicates the absence or presence of
+a particular type of taint. It's best to leave that to the aforementioned
+script, but if you need something quick you can use this shell command to check
+which bits are set::
+
+	$ for i in $(seq 18); do echo $(($i-1)) $(($(cat /proc/sys/kernel/tainted)>>($i-1)&1));done
+
+Table for decoding tainted state
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+===  ===  ======  ========================================================
+Bit  Log  Number  Reason that got the kernel tainted
+===  ===  ======  ========================================================
+  0  G/P       1  proprietary module was loaded
+  1  _/F       2  module was force loaded
+  2  _/S       4  SMP kernel oops on an officially SMP incapable processor
+  3  _/R       8  module was force unloaded
+  4  _/M      16  processor reported a Machine Check Exception (MCE)
+  5  _/B      32  bad page referenced or some unexpected page flags
+  6  _/U      64  taint requested by userspace application
+  7  _/D     128  kernel died recently, i.e. there was an OOPS or BUG
+  8  _/A     256  ACPI table overridden by user
+  9  _/W     512  kernel issued warning
+ 10  _/C    1024  staging driver was loaded
+ 11  _/I    2048  workaround for bug in platform firmware applied
+ 12  _/O    4096  externally-built ("out-of-tree") module was loaded
+ 13  _/E    8192  unsigned module was loaded
+ 14  _/L   16384  soft lockup occurred
+ 15  _/K   32768  kernel has been live patched
+ 16  _/X   65536  auxiliary taint, defined for and used by distros
+ 17  _/T  131072  kernel was built with the struct randomization plugin
+===  ===  ======  ========================================================
+
+Note: The character ``_`` is representing a blank in this table to make reading
+easier.
+
+More detailed explanation for tainting
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+ 0)  ``G`` if all modules loaded have a GPL or compatible license, ``P`` if
+     any proprietary module has been loaded.  Modules without a
+     MODULE_LICENSE or with a MODULE_LICENSE that is not recognised by
+     insmod as GPL compatible are assumed to be proprietary.
+
+ 1)  ``F`` if any module was force loaded by ``insmod -f``, ``' '`` if all
+     modules were loaded normally.
+
+ 2)  ``S`` if the oops occurred on an SMP kernel running on hardware that
+     hasn't been certified as safe to run multiprocessor.
+     Currently this occurs only on various Athlons that are not
+     SMP capable.
+
+ 3)  ``R`` if a module was force unloaded by ``rmmod -f``, ``' '`` if all
+     modules were unloaded normally.
+
+ 4)  ``M`` if any processor has reported a Machine Check Exception,
+     ``' '`` if no Machine Check Exceptions have occurred.
+
+ 5)  ``B`` If a page-release function has found a bad page reference or some
+     unexpected page flags. This indicates a hardware problem or a kernel bug;
+     there should be other information in the log indicating why this tainting
+     occurred.
+
+ 6)  ``U`` if a user or user application specifically requested that the
+     Tainted flag be set, ``' '`` otherwise.
+
+ 7)  ``D`` if the kernel has died recently, i.e. there was an OOPS or BUG.
+
+ 8)  ``A`` if an ACPI table has been overridden.
+
+ 9)  ``W`` if a warning has previously been issued by the kernel.
+     (Though some warnings may set more specific taint flags.)
+
+ 10) ``C`` if a staging driver has been loaded.
+
+ 11) ``I`` if the kernel is working around a severe bug in the platform
+     firmware (BIOS or similar).
+
+ 12) ``O`` if an externally-built ("out-of-tree") module has been loaded.
+
+ 13) ``E`` if an unsigned module has been loaded in a kernel supporting
+     module signature.
+
+ 14) ``L`` if a soft lockup has previously occurred on the system.
+
+ 15) ``K`` if the kernel has been live patched.
+
+ 16) ``X`` Auxiliary taint, defined for and used by Linux distributors.
+
+ 17) ``T`` Kernel was build with the randstruct plugin, which can intentionally
+     produce extremely unusual kernel structure layouts (even performance
+     pathological ones), which is important to know when debugging. Set at
+     build time.