Re: unexpected taint message

From: Johannes Berg
Date: Fri Dec 16 2011 - 08:59:08 EST


On Fri, 2011-12-16 at 07:53 -0600, Larry Finger wrote:
> On 12/16/2011 06:30 AM, Johannes Berg wrote:
> > On Fri, 2011-12-16 at 10:27 +0100, Arend van Spriel wrote:
> >> To whoever may know,
> >>
> >> Upon loading our driver module I get the following message:
> >>
> >> kernel: [ 344.805106] Disabling lock debugging due to kernel taint
> >>
> >> What exactly are the criteria for tainting? Our driver locking strategy
> >> is something we want to refactor and having lock debugging during that
> >> transition may be a life safer.
> >
> > cat /proc/sys/kernel/tainted
>
> Please note that Documentation/sysctl/kernel.txt is missing the explanation for
> two bits in the value printed:
>
> 2048 - The system is working around a severe firmware bug.
> 4096 - An out-of-tree module has been loaded.
>
> On my system, bit 4096 is set due to loading the VirtualBox module, which
> disables lock debugging lock debugging. I suspect that loading VMware would
> cause the same condition.

Hmm. I wish OOT didn't disable lockdep, we do a lot of development with
modules OOT because the turnaround is faster/easier (for not so
experienced developers). Worst case we can patch it out of the base
kernel I guess...

johannes

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