Re: RFC: Tainting the kernel on raw I/O access

From: Andi Kleen
Date: Wed Sep 03 2014 - 19:46:26 EST


"H. Peter Anvin" <h.peter.anvin@xxxxxxxxx> writes:

> In a meeting earlier today, we discussed MSR access and that it could be
> used to do bad things. The same applies to other forms of raw I/O
> (/dev/mem, /dev/port, ioperm, iopl, etc.)

I don't think it makes sense to use the taint flags as a security
mechanism. They would be a very poor (and likely by itself insecure) one.

As for the original purpose of taints, I'm not aware of any
problems with MSR access or port IO causing excessive
kernel oops reports. Are you?

If there are none I don't think it makes sense.

At least personally I use MSR accesses quite frequently
for benign purposes.

-Andi

--
ak@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx -- Speaking for myself only
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/