[PATCH 4.7 185/186] Documentation/module-signing.txt: Note need for version info if reusing a key

From: Greg Kroah-Hartman
Date: Thu Aug 18 2016 - 10:19:06 EST


4.7-stable review patch. If anyone has any objections, please let me know.

------------------

From: Ben Hutchings <ben@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

commit b8612e517c3c9809e1200b72c474dbfd969e5a83 upstream.

Signing a module should only make it trusted by the specific kernel it
was built for, not anything else. If a module signing key is used for
multiple ABI-incompatible kernels, the modules need to include enough
version information to distinguish them.

Signed-off-by: Ben Hutchings <ben@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Rusty Russell <rusty@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

---
Documentation/module-signing.txt | 6 ++++++
1 file changed, 6 insertions(+)

--- a/Documentation/module-signing.txt
+++ b/Documentation/module-signing.txt
@@ -271,3 +271,9 @@ Since the private key is used to sign mo
the private key to sign modules and compromise the operating system. The
private key must be either destroyed or moved to a secure location and not kept
in the root node of the kernel source tree.
+
+If you use the same private key to sign modules for multiple kernel
+configurations, you must ensure that the module version information is
+sufficient to prevent loading a module into a different kernel. Either
+set CONFIG_MODVERSIONS=y or ensure that each configuration has a different
+kernel release string by changing EXTRAVERSION or CONFIG_LOCALVERSION.