Tainted Linux Kernel

[hany elromany]

when i check the kernel is tainted or not by
cat /proc/sys/kernel/tainted
16
what this mean ?
how i fix to be 0?

I have OS version:
Enterprise Linux Enterprise Linux AS release 4 (October Update 5)

and kernel number
2.6.9-55.0.0.0.2.ELsmp

another i have Linux server all of them not tainted

[Ivan Krastev]

You have the unsupported module loaded:

Irrespective of this setting, loading an externally supported or unsupported
module both set a kernel taint flag. The taint flags are included in
Oopses. The taint status of the kernel can be inspected in
/proc/sys/kernel/tainted: Bits 0 to 4 have the following meanings:

bit 0 = a module with a GPL-incompatible license was loaded (tainted & 1),
bit 1 = module load was enforced (tainted & 2),
bit 2 = an SMP-unsafe module was loaded (tainted & 4),
bit 3 = (reserved),
bit 4 = an unsupported module was loaded (tainted & 16),
bit 5 = a module with third-party support was loaded (tainted & 32).
bit 10 = a machine check exception has occurred (taint & 1024; x86_64 only
so far).


regards,
ivan

[Nido]

Hi,

Check the following URL:

http://www.suse.de/~agruen/kernel-doc/
http://www.novell.com/support/viewContent.do?externalId=3582750&sliceId=1

Thanks,

[hany elromany]

how i fix it?

[Ivan Krastev]

Check which module taint the kernel - bit 4 = an unsupported module was loaded (tainted & 16),

Check in dmesg output ot /var/log/boot.msg for tainted module.

regards,
ivan

[hany elromany]

hi
Check which module taint the kernel - bit 4 = an unsupported module was loaded (tainted & 16),

Check in dmesg output ot /var/log/boot.msg for tainted module.
1-how i check the module taint in kernal?
2- I check the dmesg
:dmesg | grep taint
nothing i found neither in
cat /var/log/messages | grep taint

regards,
ivan

[hany elromany]

hi ivan,
can you provide me method how to diagnose this issues?
regards
hany

[Steven E. Protter]

Shalom,

You can look at your modules loaded and find the one that is not supported and stop using it.

modprobe -l
# lists them all it gets kind of a long list

But there may be a good reason for using it such as a special piece of hardware. Having a tainted kernel is not a big problem.

SEP

[hany elromany]

hi SEP,
thanks for your reply
i didn't know how to check about modules that it made this tainted on kernel .


i attach modprobe -l output can you tell me which module made this tainted .

regards
hany