On Fri Aug 7, 2026 at 2:25 AM BST, Aaron Tomlin wrote: > Currently, the "module_blacklist=" command-line parameter only applies to > loadable modules. If a module is built-in, the parameter is silently > ignored. This patch series extends the blacklisting functionality to > built-in modules by intercepting their initialisation routines during early > boot. > > Following review feedback, the implementation has been split into two > separate changes to decouple the introduction of the new feature from the > terminology renaming: > > 1. The first patch extends the "module_blacklist=" parameter to > built-in modules using the original blacklist terminology. It > introduces the ".initcall.modnames" section to map initcall > function pointers to their associated KBUILD_MODNAME strings > (restricted only to module_init() invocations to save memory and > avoid matching core kernel subsystems). It also restricts the check > to a boot-time __init wrapper to eliminate Use-After-Free (UAF) and > Spectre v1 vulnerability risks when loading dynamic modules at > runtime, and adds a fast-path check to eliminate lookup overhead > when the parameter is not in use > > 2. The second patch renames the variables and helper functions to > adopt the preferred "module_denylist=" and module_is_denylisted() > terminology in the codebase. To preserve the existing user-space > ABI, "module_blacklist=" is kept as a legacy alias pointing to the > same module_denylist variable > > Aaron Tomlin (2): > module: Extend module_blacklist parameter to built-in modules > module: Rename module_blacklist to module_denylist
I feel with https://lore.kernel.org/driver-core/[email protected]/ and this we're really making loadable module and builtin modules less different. I wonder if we should just somewhat unify these completly, so built-in modules just behave identically to loadable modules, just without runtime relocations and ability to unload. Of course, that's quite a big change... And mostly likely people won't care because almost everything is built as loadable modules in distros anyway. Best, Gary > > .../admin-guide/kernel-parameters.txt | 6 +- > include/asm-generic/vmlinux.lds.h | 4 +- > include/linux/init.h | 24 +++++++- > include/linux/module.h | 4 +- > init/main.c | 55 ++++++++++++++++++- > kernel/module/main.c | 25 +-------- > rust/macros/module.rs | 16 ++++++ > 7 files changed, 105 insertions(+), 29 deletions(-)
