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authorLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>2024-08-11 09:38:38 -0700
committerLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>2024-08-11 09:38:38 -0700
commit84e6da575215154cf6aa1e17661989d3b37bb3c1 (patch)
tree94153155269d022d0b70f04c68406e716a468010 /Documentation
parent9221afb2d8e8db75bbf71a223010e37db1b64f30 (diff)
parent15fffc6a5624b13b428bb1c6e9088e32a55eb82c (diff)
Merge tag 'driver-core-6.11-rc3' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/gregkh/driver-core
Pull driver core / documentation fixes from Greg KH: "Here are some small fixes, and some documentation updates for 6.11-rc3. Included in here are: - embargoed hardware documenation updates based on a lot of review by legal-types in lots of companies to try to make the process a _bit_ easier for us to manage over time. - rust firmware documentation fix - driver detach race fix for the fix that went into 6.11-rc1 All of these have been in linux-next for a while with no reported issues" * tag 'driver-core-6.11-rc3' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/gregkh/driver-core: driver core: Fix uevent_show() vs driver detach race Documentation: embargoed-hardware-issues.rst: add a section documenting the "early access" process Documentation: embargoed-hardware-issues.rst: minor cleanups and fixes rust: firmware: fix invalid rustdoc link
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation')
-rw-r--r--Documentation/process/embargoed-hardware-issues.rst153
1 files changed, 96 insertions, 57 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/process/embargoed-hardware-issues.rst b/Documentation/process/embargoed-hardware-issues.rst
index 6e9a4597bf2c..daebce49cfdf 100644
--- a/Documentation/process/embargoed-hardware-issues.rst
+++ b/Documentation/process/embargoed-hardware-issues.rst
@@ -13,9 +13,9 @@ kernel.
Hardware issues like Meltdown, Spectre, L1TF etc. must be treated
differently because they usually affect all Operating Systems ("OS") and
therefore need coordination across different OS vendors, distributions,
-hardware vendors and other parties. For some of the issues, software
-mitigations can depend on microcode or firmware updates, which need further
-coordination.
+silicon vendors, hardware integrators, and other parties. For some of the
+issues, software mitigations can depend on microcode or firmware updates,
+which need further coordination.
.. _Contact:
@@ -32,8 +32,8 @@ Linux kernel security team (:ref:`Documentation/admin-guide/
<securitybugs>`) instead.
The team can be contacted by email at <hardware-security@kernel.org>. This
-is a private list of security officers who will help you to coordinate a
-fix according to our documented process.
+is a private list of security officers who will help you coordinate a fix
+according to our documented process.
The list is encrypted and email to the list can be sent by either PGP or
S/MIME encrypted and must be signed with the reporter's PGP key or S/MIME
@@ -43,7 +43,7 @@ the following URLs:
- PGP: https://www.kernel.org/static/files/hardware-security.asc
- S/MIME: https://www.kernel.org/static/files/hardware-security.crt
-While hardware security issues are often handled by the affected hardware
+While hardware security issues are often handled by the affected silicon
vendor, we welcome contact from researchers or individuals who have
identified a potential hardware flaw.
@@ -65,7 +65,7 @@ of Linux Foundation's IT operations personnel technically have the
ability to access the embargoed information, but are obliged to
confidentiality by their employment contract. Linux Foundation IT
personnel are also responsible for operating and managing the rest of
-kernel.org infrastructure.
+kernel.org's infrastructure.
The Linux Foundation's current director of IT Project infrastructure is
Konstantin Ryabitsev.
@@ -85,7 +85,7 @@ Memorandum of Understanding
The Linux kernel community has a deep understanding of the requirement to
keep hardware security issues under embargo for coordination between
-different OS vendors, distributors, hardware vendors and other parties.
+different OS vendors, distributors, silicon vendors, and other parties.
The Linux kernel community has successfully handled hardware security
issues in the past and has the necessary mechanisms in place to allow
@@ -103,11 +103,11 @@ the issue in the best technical way.
All involved developers pledge to adhere to the embargo rules and to keep
the received information confidential. Violation of the pledge will lead to
immediate exclusion from the current issue and removal from all related
-mailing-lists. In addition, the hardware security team will also exclude
+mailing lists. In addition, the hardware security team will also exclude
the offender from future issues. The impact of this consequence is a highly
effective deterrent in our community. In case a violation happens the
hardware security team will inform the involved parties immediately. If you
-or anyone becomes aware of a potential violation, please report it
+or anyone else becomes aware of a potential violation, please report it
immediately to the Hardware security officers.
@@ -124,14 +124,16 @@ method for these types of issues.
Start of Disclosure
"""""""""""""""""""
-Disclosure starts by contacting the Linux kernel hardware security team by
-email. This initial contact should contain a description of the problem and
-a list of any known affected hardware. If your organization builds or
-distributes the affected hardware, we encourage you to also consider what
-other hardware could be affected.
+Disclosure starts by emailing the Linux kernel hardware security team per
+the Contact section above. This initial contact should contain a
+description of the problem and a list of any known affected silicon. If
+your organization builds or distributes the affected hardware, we encourage
+you to also consider what other hardware could be affected. The disclosing
+party is responsible for contacting the affected silicon vendors in a
+timely manner.
The hardware security team will provide an incident-specific encrypted
-mailing-list which will be used for initial discussion with the reporter,
+mailing list which will be used for initial discussion with the reporter,
further disclosure, and coordination of fixes.
The hardware security team will provide the disclosing party a list of
@@ -158,8 +160,8 @@ This serves several purposes:
- The disclosed entities can be contacted to name experts who should
participate in the mitigation development.
- - If an expert which is required to handle an issue is employed by an
- listed entity or member of an listed entity, then the response teams can
+ - If an expert who is required to handle an issue is employed by a listed
+ entity or member of an listed entity, then the response teams can
request the disclosure of that expert from that entity. This ensures
that the expert is also part of the entity's response team.
@@ -169,8 +171,8 @@ Disclosure
The disclosing party provides detailed information to the initial response
team via the specific encrypted mailing-list.
-From our experience the technical documentation of these issues is usually
-a sufficient starting point and further technical clarification is best
+From our experience, the technical documentation of these issues is usually
+a sufficient starting point, and further technical clarification is best
done via email.
Mitigation development
@@ -179,57 +181,93 @@ Mitigation development
The initial response team sets up an encrypted mailing-list or repurposes
an existing one if appropriate.
-Using a mailing-list is close to the normal Linux development process and
-has been successfully used in developing mitigations for various hardware
+Using a mailing list is close to the normal Linux development process and
+has been successfully used to develop mitigations for various hardware
security issues in the past.
-The mailing-list operates in the same way as normal Linux development.
-Patches are posted, discussed and reviewed and if agreed on applied to a
-non-public git repository which is only accessible to the participating
+The mailing list operates in the same way as normal Linux development.
+Patches are posted, discussed, and reviewed and if agreed upon, applied to
+a non-public git repository which is only accessible to the participating
developers via a secure connection. The repository contains the main
development branch against the mainline kernel and backport branches for
stable kernel versions as necessary.
The initial response team will identify further experts from the Linux
-kernel developer community as needed. Bringing in experts can happen at any
-time of the development process and needs to be handled in a timely manner.
+kernel developer community as needed. Any involved party can suggest
+further experts to be included, each of which will be subject to the same
+requirements outlined above.
-If an expert is employed by or member of an entity on the disclosure list
+Bringing in experts can happen at any time in the development process and
+needs to be handled in a timely manner.
+
+If an expert is employed by or a member of an entity on the disclosure list
provided by the disclosing party, then participation will be requested from
the relevant entity.
-If not, then the disclosing party will be informed about the experts
+If not, then the disclosing party will be informed about the experts'
participation. The experts are covered by the Memorandum of Understanding
-and the disclosing party is requested to acknowledge the participation. In
-case that the disclosing party has a compelling reason to object, then this
-objection has to be raised within five work days and resolved with the
-incident team immediately. If the disclosing party does not react within
-five work days this is taken as silent acknowledgement.
+and the disclosing party is requested to acknowledge their participation.
+In the case where the disclosing party has a compelling reason to object,
+any objection must to be raised within five working days and resolved with
+the incident team immediately. If the disclosing party does not react
+within five working days this is taken as silent acknowledgment.
-After acknowledgement or resolution of an objection the expert is disclosed
-by the incident team and brought into the development process.
+After the incident team acknowledges or resolves an objection, the expert
+is disclosed and brought into the development process.
List participants may not communicate about the issue outside of the
private mailing list. List participants may not use any shared resources
(e.g. employer build farms, CI systems, etc) when working on patches.
+Early access
+""""""""""""
+
+The patches discussed and developed on the list can neither be distributed
+to any individual who is not a member of the response team nor to any other
+organization.
+
+To allow the affected silicon vendors to work with their internal teams and
+industry partners on testing, validation, and logistics, the following
+exception is provided:
+
+ Designated representatives of the affected silicon vendors are
+ allowed to hand over the patches at any time to the silicon
+ vendor’s response team. The representative must notify the kernel
+ response team about the handover. The affected silicon vendor must
+ have and maintain their own documented security process for any
+ patches shared with their response team that is consistent with
+ this policy.
+
+ The silicon vendor’s response team can distribute these patches to
+ their industry partners and to their internal teams under the
+ silicon vendor’s documented security process. Feedback from the
+ industry partners goes back to the silicon vendor and is
+ communicated by the silicon vendor to the kernel response team.
+
+ The handover to the silicon vendor’s response team removes any
+ responsibility or liability from the kernel response team regarding
+ premature disclosure, which happens due to the involvement of the
+ silicon vendor’s internal teams or industry partners. The silicon
+ vendor guarantees this release of liability by agreeing to this
+ process.
Coordinated release
"""""""""""""""""""
-The involved parties will negotiate the date and time where the embargo
-ends. At that point the prepared mitigations are integrated into the
-relevant kernel trees and published. There is no pre-notification process:
-fixes are published in public and available to everyone at the same time.
+The involved parties will negotiate the date and time when the embargo
+ends. At that point, the prepared mitigations are published into the
+relevant kernel trees. There is no pre-notification process: the
+mitigations are published in public and available to everyone at the same
+time.
While we understand that hardware security issues need coordinated embargo
-time, the embargo time should be constrained to the minimum time which is
-required for all involved parties to develop, test and prepare the
+time, the embargo time should be constrained to the minimum time that is
+required for all involved parties to develop, test, and prepare their
mitigations. Extending embargo time artificially to meet conference talk
-dates or other non-technical reasons is creating more work and burden for
-the involved developers and response teams as the patches need to be kept
-up to date in order to follow the ongoing upstream kernel development,
-which might create conflicting changes.
+dates or other non-technical reasons creates more work and burden for the
+involved developers and response teams as the patches need to be kept up to
+date in order to follow the ongoing upstream kernel development, which
+might create conflicting changes.
CVE assignment
""""""""""""""
@@ -275,34 +313,35 @@ an involved disclosed party. The current ambassadors list:
If you want your organization to be added to the ambassadors list, please
contact the hardware security team. The nominated ambassador has to
-understand and support our process fully and is ideally well connected in
+understand and support our process fully and is ideally well-connected in
the Linux kernel community.
Encrypted mailing-lists
-----------------------
-We use encrypted mailing-lists for communication. The operating principle
+We use encrypted mailing lists for communication. The operating principle
of these lists is that email sent to the list is encrypted either with the
-list's PGP key or with the list's S/MIME certificate. The mailing-list
+list's PGP key or with the list's S/MIME certificate. The mailing list
software decrypts the email and re-encrypts it individually for each
subscriber with the subscriber's PGP key or S/MIME certificate. Details
-about the mailing-list software and the setup which is used to ensure the
+about the mailing list software and the setup that is used to ensure the
security of the lists and protection of the data can be found here:
https://korg.wiki.kernel.org/userdoc/remail.
List keys
^^^^^^^^^
-For initial contact see :ref:`Contact`. For incident specific mailing-lists
-the key and S/MIME certificate are conveyed to the subscribers by email
-sent from the specific list.
+For initial contact see the :ref:`Contact` section above. For incident
+specific mailing lists, the key and S/MIME certificate are conveyed to the
+subscribers by email sent from the specific list.
-Subscription to incident specific lists
+Subscription to incident-specific lists
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
-Subscription is handled by the response teams. Disclosed parties who want
-to participate in the communication send a list of potential subscribers to
-the response team so the response team can validate subscription requests.
+Subscription to incident-specific lists is handled by the response teams.
+Disclosed parties who want to participate in the communication send a list
+of potential experts to the response team so the response team can validate
+subscription requests.
Each subscriber needs to send a subscription request to the response team
by email. The email must be signed with the subscriber's PGP key or S/MIME