On a (pre-SkyLake) system, where /sys/.../vulnerabilities/spectre_v2 is
"Mitigation: Full generic retpoline, IBPB: conditional, IBRS_FW, RSB filling"
the tool, incorrectly, reports, a couple of lines above:
* IBRS enabled and active: YES (for kernel and firmware code)
Use '\<IBRS\>', as suggested by @jirislaby, in upstream issue #275
(https://github.com/speed47/spectre-meltdown-checker/issues/275) when
checking whether IBRS is enabled/active for the kernel.
With that, the output becomes:
* IBRS enabled and active: YES (for firmware code only)
which is actually the case.
I double checked that, if the same kernel is used on a post-SkyLake
hardware, which on openSUSE uses IBRS as, even with this change, the
tool (this time correctly) reports:
* IBRS enabled and active: YES (for kernel and firmware code)