netdev - Re: [PATCH v2 12/15] ath10k: use new module_firmware

lists.openwall.net		lists / announce owl-users owl-dev john-users john-dev passwdqc-users yescrypt popa3d-users / oss-security kernel-hardening musl sabotage tlsify passwords / crypt-dev xvendor / Bugtraq Full-Disclosure linux-kernel linux-netdev linux-ext4 linux-hardening PHC
Open Source and information security mailing list archives

Hash Suite: Windows password security audit tool. GUI, reports in PDF.

[<prev] [next>] [<thread-prev] [thread-next>] [day] [month] [year] [list]

Date:   Sat, 16 May 2020 15:24:01 +0200
From:   Johannes Berg <johannes@...solutions.net>
To:     Luis Chamberlain <mcgrof@...nel.org>, jeyu@...nel.org
Cc:     akpm@...ux-foundation.org, arnd@...db.de, rostedt@...dmis.org,
        mingo@...hat.com, aquini@...hat.com, cai@....pw, dyoung@...hat.com,
        bhe@...hat.com, peterz@...radead.org, tglx@...utronix.de,
        gpiccoli@...onical.com, pmladek@...e.com, tiwai@...e.de,
        schlad@...e.de, andriy.shevchenko@...ux.intel.com,
        keescook@...omium.org, daniel.vetter@...ll.ch, will@...nel.org,
        mchehab+samsung@...nel.org, kvalo@...eaurora.org,
        davem@...emloft.net, netdev@...r.kernel.org,
        linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, linux-wireless@...r.kernel.org,
        ath10k@...ts.infradead.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH v2 12/15] ath10k: use new module_firmware_crashed()

On Fri, 2020-05-15 at 21:28 +0000, Luis Chamberlain wrote:> module_firmware_crashed

You didn't CC me or the wireless list on the rest of the patches, so I'm
replying to a random one, but ...

What is the point here?

This should in no way affect the integrity of the system/kernel, for
most devices anyway.

So what if ath10k's firmware crashes? If there's a driver bug it will
not handle it right (and probably crash, WARN_ON, or something else),
but if the driver is working right then that will not affect the kernel
at all.

So maybe I can understand that maybe you want an easy way to discover -
per device - that the firmware crashed, but that still doesn't warrant a
complete kernel taint.

Instead of the kernel taint, IMHO you should provide an annotation in
sysfs (or somewhere else) for the *struct device* that had its firmware
crash. Or maybe, if it's too complex to walk the entire hierarchy
checking for that, have a uevent, or add the ability for the kernel to
print out elsewhere in debugfs the list of devices that crashed at some
point... All of that is fine, but a kernel taint?

johannes