Requesting a fwctl scope of access that includes mutating device debug
data will cause the kernel to be tainted. Changing the device operation
through things in the debug scope may cause the device to malfunction in
undefined ways. This should be reflected in the TAINT flags to help any
debuggers understand that something has been done.

Link: https://patch.msgid.link/r/4-v5-642aa0c94070+4447f-fwctl_jgg@nvidia.com
Reviewed-by: Jonathan Cameron <Jonathan.Cameron@huawei.com>
Reviewed-by: Dave Jiang <dave.jiang@intel.com>
Reviewed-by: Shannon Nelson <shannon.nelson@amd.com>
Tested-by: Dave Jiang <dave.jiang@intel.com>
Tested-by: Shannon Nelson <shannon.nelson@amd.com>
Signed-off-by: Jason Gunthorpe <jgg@nvidia.com>

Every taint flag has an entry in the "More detailed explanation" section
except for the 'N' flag. That omission was probably just an oversight so
add an entry for that flag.

Signed-off-by: Benjamin Poirier <bpoirier@nvidia.com>
Acked-by: Luis Chamberlain <mcgrof@kernel.org>
Reviewed-by: David Gow <davidgow@google.com>
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20240717203521.514348-1-bpoirier@nvidia.com

- Add missing article "the"
- s/above example/example above/
- Add missing comma after introductory clause to improve readability

Signed-off-by: Thorsten Blum <thorsten.blum@toblux.com>
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20240205132409.1957-1-thorsten.blum@toblux.com

Commit

  d23d33ea0fcd ("x86/microcode: Taint and warn on late loading")

started tainting the kernel after microcode late loading.

There is some history behind why x86 microcode started doing the late
loading stop_machine() rendezvous. Document the whole situation.

No functional changes.

  [ bp: Fix typos, heavily massage. ]

Signed-off-by: Ashok Raj <ashok.raj@intel.com>
Signed-off-by: Borislav Petkov <bp@suse.de>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20220813223825.3164861-2-ashok.raj@intel.com

Most in-kernel tests (such as KUnit tests) are not supposed to run on
production systems: they may do deliberately illegal things to trigger
errors, and have security implications (for example, KUnit assertions
will often deliberately leak kernel addresses).

Add a new taint type, TAINT_TEST to signal that a test has been run.
This will be printed as 'N' (originally for kuNit, as every other
sensible letter was taken.)

This should discourage people from running these tests on production
systems, and to make it easier to tell if tests have been run
accidentally (by loading the wrong configuration, etc.)

Acked-by: Luis Chamberlain <mcgrof@kernel.org>
Reviewed-by: Brendan Higgins <brendanhiggins@google.com>
Signed-off-by: David Gow <davidgow@google.com>
Signed-off-by: Shuah Khan <skhan@linuxfoundation.org>

Here's a patch updating the meaning of TAINT_CPU_OUT_OF_SPEC after
Borislav introduced changes in a7e1f67ed29f and upcoming patches in tip.

TAINT_CPU_OUT_OF_SPEC now means a bit more what it implies as the
flag isn't set just because of a CPU misconfiguration or mismatch.
Historically it was for SMP kernel oops on an officially SMP incapable
processor but now it also covers CPUs whose MSRs have been incorrectly
poked at from userspace, drivers being used on non supported
architectures, broken firmware, mismatched CPUs, ...

Update documentation and script to reflect that.

Signed-off-by: Mathieu Chouquet-Stringer <me@mathieu.digital>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20201202153244.709752-1-me@mathieu.digital
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>

Fix typo.
s/occured/occurred/

Signed-off-by: Naoki Hayama <naoki.hayama@lineo.co.jp>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20201012082441.5831-1-naoki.hayama@lineo.co.jp
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>

Fix typo "tis" -> "this".

Signed-off-by: Yue Hu <huyue2@yulong.com>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20200725022444.10976-1-zbestahu@gmail.com
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>

Drop the doubled word "the".

Signed-off-by: Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@infradead.org>
Cc: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
Cc: linux-doc@vger.kernel.org
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20200704032020.21923-13-rdunlap@infradead.org
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>

Add a section about decoding /proc/sys/kernel/tainted, create a more
understandable intro and a hopefully explain better the tainted flags in
bugs, oops or panics messages. Only thing missing then is a table that
quickly describes the various bits and taint flags before going into more
detail, so add that as well.

That table is partly based on a section from Documentation/sysctl/kernel.txt,
but a bit more compact. To avoid confusion I added the shortened version to
kernel.txt; the same table is used in three different places now:
./tools/debugging/kernel-chktaint,
Documentation/admin-guide/tainted-kernels.rst and
Documentation/sysctl/kernel.txt

During review of v1 (see above) a number of existing issues with the text
were raised, like outdated usages as well as incomplete or missing
descriptions.  Address most of those as well.

Signed-off-by: Thorsten Leemhuis <linux@leemhuis.info>
[jc: tightened up changelog]
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>