linux-stable/Documentation/sysctl
Mathieu Desnoyers 66cc69e34e Fix: module signature vs tracepoints: add new TAINT_UNSIGNED_MODULE
Users have reported being unable to trace non-signed modules loaded
within a kernel supporting module signature.

This is caused by tracepoint.c:tracepoint_module_coming() refusing to
take into account tracepoints sitting within force-loaded modules
(TAINT_FORCED_MODULE). The reason for this check, in the first place, is
that a force-loaded module may have a struct module incompatible with
the layout expected by the kernel, and can thus cause a kernel crash
upon forced load of that module on a kernel with CONFIG_TRACEPOINTS=y.

Tracepoints, however, specifically accept TAINT_OOT_MODULE and
TAINT_CRAP, since those modules do not lead to the "very likely system
crash" issue cited above for force-loaded modules.

With kernels having CONFIG_MODULE_SIG=y (signed modules), a non-signed
module is tainted re-using the TAINT_FORCED_MODULE taint flag.
Unfortunately, this means that Tracepoints treat that module as a
force-loaded module, and thus silently refuse to consider any tracepoint
within this module.

Since an unsigned module does not fit within the "very likely system
crash" category of tainting, add a new TAINT_UNSIGNED_MODULE taint flag
to specifically address this taint behavior, and accept those modules
within Tracepoints. We use the letter 'X' as a taint flag character for
a module being loaded that doesn't know how to sign its name (proposed
by Steven Rostedt).

Also add the missing 'O' entry to trace event show_module_flags() list
for the sake of completeness.

Signed-off-by: Mathieu Desnoyers <mathieu.desnoyers@efficios.com>
Acked-by: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>
NAKed-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@redhat.com>
CC: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
CC: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com>
CC: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Rusty Russell <rusty@rustcorp.com.au>
2014-03-13 12:11:51 +10:30
..
00-INDEX sysctl: remove obsolete comments 2011-01-13 08:03:18 -08:00
abi.txt
fs.txt Merge branch 'for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/viro/vfs 2012-08-01 10:26:23 -07:00
kernel.txt Fix: module signature vs tracepoints: add new TAINT_UNSIGNED_MODULE 2014-03-13 12:11:51 +10:30
net.txt qdisc: allow setting default queuing discipline 2013-08-31 00:32:32 -04:00
README
sunrpc.txt
vm.txt mm: document improved handling of swappiness==0 2014-01-29 16:22:39 -08:00

Documentation for /proc/sys/		kernel version 2.2.10
	(c) 1998, 1999,  Rik van Riel <riel@nl.linux.org>

'Why', I hear you ask, 'would anyone even _want_ documentation
for them sysctl files? If anybody really needs it, it's all in
the source...'

Well, this documentation is written because some people either
don't know they need to tweak something, or because they don't
have the time or knowledge to read the source code.

Furthermore, the programmers who built sysctl have built it to
be actually used, not just for the fun of programming it :-)

==============================================================

Legal blurb:

As usual, there are two main things to consider:
1. you get what you pay for
2. it's free

The consequences are that I won't guarantee the correctness of
this document, and if you come to me complaining about how you
screwed up your system because of wrong documentation, I won't
feel sorry for you. I might even laugh at you...

But of course, if you _do_ manage to screw up your system using
only the sysctl options used in this file, I'd like to hear of
it. Not only to have a great laugh, but also to make sure that
you're the last RTFMing person to screw up.

In short, e-mail your suggestions, corrections and / or horror
stories to: <riel@nl.linux.org>

Rik van Riel.

==============================================================

Introduction:

Sysctl is a means of configuring certain aspects of the kernel
at run-time, and the /proc/sys/ directory is there so that you
don't even need special tools to do it!
In fact, there are only four things needed to use these config
facilities:
- a running Linux system
- root access
- common sense (this is especially hard to come by these days)
- knowledge of what all those values mean

As a quick 'ls /proc/sys' will show, the directory consists of
several (arch-dependent?) subdirs. Each subdir is mainly about
one part of the kernel, so you can do configuration on a piece
by piece basis, or just some 'thematic frobbing'.

The subdirs are about:
abi/		execution domains & personalities
debug/		<empty>
dev/		device specific information (eg dev/cdrom/info)
fs/		specific filesystems
		filehandle, inode, dentry and quota tuning
		binfmt_misc <Documentation/binfmt_misc.txt>
kernel/		global kernel info / tuning
		miscellaneous stuff
net/		networking stuff, for documentation look in:
		<Documentation/networking/>
proc/		<empty>
sunrpc/		SUN Remote Procedure Call (NFS)
vm/		memory management tuning
		buffer and cache management

These are the subdirs I have on my system. There might be more
or other subdirs in another setup. If you see another dir, I'd
really like to hear about it :-)