| |||||||||||||
Yup - this will finally clear any doubt...Yup - this will finally clear any doubt...Posted Nov 9, 2010 6:43 UTC (Tue) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313)In reply to: Yup - this will finally clear any doubt... by gus3 Parent article: FSFLA: Linux kernel is "open core"
you may not be aware that when the kernel loads, it includes microcode that it loads into the CPU. the is just the same as loading firmware into an external device.
however, in the nvidia driver situation, the code is being loaded into kernel space and can mess with other, seemingly unrelated things (if by no other way thatn by not following all the locking needed to make access to something safe)
(Log in to post comments)
Yup - this will finally clear any doubt... Posted Nov 9, 2010 13:47 UTC (Tue) by lxoliva (subscriber, #40702) [Link]
The microcode is actually not part of the kernel. The kernel supports loading it, but the actual microcode is separate.
As for tainting, I really don't understand why a driver that has access to DMA, system memory, buses and all on the primary CPU taints the kernel, but a blob that runs on a separate CPU and has access to DMA, system memory, buses and all doesn't taint it.
Yup - this will finally clear any doubt... Posted Nov 9, 2010 14:11 UTC (Tue) by hmh (subscriber, #3838) [Link]
You'd need to taint anything that is SMM-capable.
You'd also need to taint anything that lacks an IOMMU configured in such a way that NO device can access non-exclusive memory, and where a device cannot attack other devices in the same bus.
I.e. it would be useless.
Yup - this will finally clear any doubt... Posted Nov 10, 2010 7:28 UTC (Wed) by Los__D (guest, #15263) [Link]
Then I guess you'd taint any device that we don't have complete HDLs for?
Yup - this will finally clear any doubt... Posted Nov 10, 2010 7:34 UTC (Wed) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
don't forget the requirement for the installation tools for the software, so that would mean that they would not only have to provide you with the HDL for the chips, they would also have to provide you with the ability to produce a modified chip and put it on the board.
|
|||||||||||||