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authorDaniel Baumann <daniel.baumann@progress-linux.org>2024-04-07 18:49:45 +0000
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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 kernel running on an out of specification system
+ 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
+ 18 _/N 262144 an in-kernel test has been run
+=== === ====== ========================================================
+
+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 kernel is running on a processor or system that is out of
+ specification: hardware has been put into an unsupported configuration,
+ therefore proper execution cannot be guaranteed.
+ Kernel will be tainted if, for example:
+
+ - on x86: PAE is forced through forcepae on intel CPUs (such as Pentium M)
+ which do not report PAE but may have a functional implementation, an SMP
+ kernel is running on non officially capable SMP Athlon CPUs, MSRs are
+ being poked at from userspace.
+ - on arm: kernel running on certain CPUs (such as Keystone 2) without
+ having certain kernel features enabled.
+ - on arm64: there are mismatched hardware features between CPUs, the
+ bootloader has booted CPUs in different modes.
+ - certain drivers are being used on non supported architectures (such as
+ scsi/snic on something else than x86_64, scsi/ips on non
+ x86/x86_64/itanium, have broken firmware settings for the
+ irqchip/irq-gic on arm64 ...).
+ - x86/x86_64: Microcode late loading is dangerous and will result in
+ tainting the kernel. It requires that all CPUs rendezvous to make sure
+ the update happens when the system is as quiescent as possible. However,
+ a higher priority MCE/SMI/NMI can move control flow away from that
+ rendezvous and interrupt the update, which can be detrimental to the
+ machine.
+
+ 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.