Automotive Grade Linux (AGL) is not, by itself, a functional-safety certification. It is an open-source automotive software platform whose components can be part of a safety-related vehicle system. The vehicle program must define the actual function and hazards, select the AGL components and configuration it will deploy, and produce evidence that the complete system and development process satisfy the applicable safety requirements. ISO 26262-6:2018 supplies software-level requirements; adopting AGL does not automatically demonstrate compliance with them.
What functional safety means when AGL is in the stack
Functional safety addresses unreasonable risk caused by hazards arising from malfunctioning electrical and electronic systems. In an AGL vehicle program, the relevant question is not “Is AGL safe?” in the abstract. It is whether a specific vehicle function, with a defined hardware and software configuration, has an adequate safety case.
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That safety case belongs to the organization responsible for the vehicle item or system. It identifies the intended function, operating conditions, hazards, safety goals, technical architecture, responsibilities among suppliers, and the work products supporting the safety argument. AGL may supply shared platform software, but it does not define every product-specific application requirement or prove the behavior of every integration.
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AGL is a collaborative platform project
AGL brings automakers, suppliers and technology companies together to build Linux-based automotive software platforms. Its documentation discusses infotainment, instrument clusters, head-up displays, telematics, advanced driver-assistance systems, functional safety and autonomous driving among the areas it addresses. The Unified Code Base (UCB) overview describes the UCB specifically as a Linux distribution for in-vehicle infotainment and connected-car experiences.
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Platform use is not a safety classification
“AGL,” “Linux,” or a particular UCB release is not a substitute for an ASIL determination. The safety relevance depends on the item and its hazards, the partitioning between functions, the interfaces, the hardware, the applications, and the evidence available for the exact build. A non-safety infotainment function and a safety-related instrument-cluster function can use related platform technology while requiring very different analyses and controls.
Where the AGL platform specification stops
AGL’s architecture overview presents a layered platform with App/HMI, Application Framework, Services and Operating System layers among its five layers. These layers help organize reusable platform capabilities and interfaces; they are not a complete product safety specification.
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The AGL specification page states: “The scope of the AGL Requirements Spec is to define the architecture of the Automotive Grade Linux software platform.” The same specification explains that application requirements are generally outside its scope, apart from a home-screen case. In practice, the product project must add requirements for its vehicle function, timing, diagnostics, fault handling, degraded operation, cybersecurity interactions and user-visible behavior.
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- An item definition and system boundary covering sensors, networks, ECUs, displays, actuators, hypervisors and external services that can influence the function.
- Hazard analysis and risk assessment, safety goals and the resulting ASIL assignments where applicable.
- Software safety requirements allocated to AGL components, applications, middleware, drivers and hardware.
- Interface contracts, freedom-from-interference arguments and assumptions about suppliers and platform services.
- Verification, validation, configuration-management and change-control evidence for the deployed product.
What ISO 26262-6:2018 actually covers
ISO identifies ISO 26262-6:2018, Road vehicles — Functional safety — Part 6: Product development at the software level, as Edition 2, published in December 2018. The ISO catalog says the edition was reviewed and confirmed in 2024, so it remains current there.
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Its official abstract says: “This document specifies the requirements for product development at the software level for automotive applications, including the following:” The listed subjects are:
- software safety requirements;
- software architectural design;
- software unit design and implementation;
- software unit verification;
- software integration and verification; and
- embedded-software testing.
The part applies to safety-related electrical and electronic systems installed in series-production road vehicles, subject to the standard’s stated exclusions and qualifications. It is a software-development part of the ISO 26262 series, not a stand-alone certificate for a Linux distribution, vehicle or company. ISO describes a framework for integrating functional-safety activities into an organization’s development framework and includes technical as well as process requirements.
Why Part 6 does not settle the whole safety case
A software team can satisfy selected Part 6 activities while the overall item still lacks a complete argument. System-level concept work, hardware considerations, production and operation activities, supplier interfaces and the vehicle-level safety case involve other parts of ISO 26262 and the program’s own processes. The applicable edition, scope and tailoring must therefore be recorded for the specific product.
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The following sequence keeps the platform decision tied to the actual safety claim rather than treating platform adoption as the claim itself.
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- Define the item and intended function. Specify what the vehicle feature does, when it is available, its operating modes and its external interfaces. State whether AGL hosts the complete function, a user interface, a supervisory service or a non-safety companion.
- Perform the hazard analysis and assign safety goals. Analyze malfunctions in the complete item and determine the required risk reduction and ASIL treatment. Do not assign an ASIL to “AGL” without tying it to a safety goal and an allocated function.
- Set the platform boundary. Record the exact AGL release, branches, patches, kernel, drivers, middleware, applications, board, processor, toolchain, hypervisor and configuration. Identify what is reused unchanged and what is modified.
- Allocate software safety requirements. Map requirements to AGL services, product applications, communication paths and hardware mechanisms. Include startup, shutdown, updates, diagnostics, watchdog behavior, timing limits and safe-state or degraded-state behavior.
- Design the architecture and isolation. Decide which functions share an operating-system instance, which are separated by processes or partitions, and which require separate cores, ECUs or virtual machines. Define communication controls and assumptions about interference, resource exhaustion and common-cause failures.
- Plan Part 6 work products. Establish traceability from software safety requirements through architecture, unit design, implementation, reviews, analyses, integration and embedded-software tests. Define independence and confirmation measures required by the assigned ASIL and organizational process.
- Integrate and verify the exact build. Test the AGL configuration with the product applications, hardware, networks and boot chain that will ship. Record results, anomalies, waivers, tool qualifications or tool-use justifications, and regression coverage.
- Assemble the safety case. Combine the argument, evidence, assumptions, supplier deliverables and change-control records. A release note or a general platform statement cannot replace evidence for the integrated vehicle function.
Architecture, virtualization and mixed-criticality deployment
A 2018 AGL Virtualization Expert Group document illustrates infotainment, instrument-cluster, head-up-display and telematics functions alongside third-party automotive functions over a virtualization platform and hardware. It discusses automotive regulations and ISO 26262 in that architectural context.
That document is useful for understanding partitioning concepts, but its publication does not establish a current safety certification for AGL, a particular hypervisor, or any deployed configuration. A virtualization layer can support separation, yet the safety argument still has to show that the hypervisor, hardware, inter-VM communication, shared resources, timing behavior and failure recovery meet the item’s requirements.
Questions to answer about isolation
- Can a fault in an infotainment process consume CPU, memory, storage or network bandwidth needed by a safety-related function?
- Are shared devices, drivers, graphics paths and update mechanisms included in the interference analysis?
- What happens if the hypervisor, a guest OS, a service or an inter-domain channel stops responding?
- Are monitoring, watchdog and reset paths independent enough for the assigned safety goals?
- Can a software update change the analyzed configuration, and is re-verification triggered?
Compare AGL deployment patterns by safety evidence
| Deployment pattern | Function and hazard context | Platform boundary | Architecture and isolation | Evidence focus |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Non-safety infotainment or connected services | The function is not allocated a safety goal, although faults may still create operational or security concerns. | AGL UCB, applications and connected services are treated as product components with defined interfaces. | Conventional OS and process controls may be appropriate; safety-related interference assumptions must still be documented where domains interact. | Product requirements, reliability, security, integration and release testing; no claim of ISO 26262 compliance follows from AGL use. |
| Mixed-criticality system with separated domains | Safety-related and non-safety functions coexist and must meet defined freedom-from-interference assumptions. | Record the exact AGL components, safety-related guests or applications, third-party software and shared services. | Use hardware, partitioning or virtualization with analyzed communication and resource controls. | Isolation evidence, fault-injection or robustness results where required, interface traceability and supplier evidence for the separation mechanisms. |
| AGL-hosted safety-related application | The AGL-hosted function contributes directly to one or more safety goals and has an assigned ASIL treatment. | Include the kernel, drivers, middleware, libraries, applications, toolchain and board configuration in the item boundary. | Demonstrate that architecture, timing, diagnostics, failure handling and shared-resource behavior satisfy the allocated requirements. | Complete applicable ISO 26262 software work products, integration results and a vehicle-program safety case for the released configuration. |
Evidence and configuration checklist
Before making a compliance statement, a program should be able to identify the following artifacts for the exact vehicle variant:
- the item definition, safety goals, ASIL decisions and system assumptions;
- the AGL release identifier, commit or patch set, build recipe and reproducible configuration records;
- the hardware part numbers, boot firmware, board support package, compiler, linker and other development tools;
- the inventory and provenance of third-party libraries, drivers, hypervisor components and applications;
- software safety requirements with bidirectional traceability to architecture, code and tests;
- unit, integration and embedded-software test plans and results, including abnormal and degraded modes;
- analyses for interference, resource limits, timing, diagnostics, common-cause failures and external interfaces;
- supplier agreements defining responsibilities, assumptions, deliverables and change notification;
- configuration-management, problem-resolution, release and update procedures; and
- the rationale for any tailoring, reuse, pre-existing software evidence or deviations from the project’s safety plan.
Claims that are too broad—and safer alternatives
| Avoid saying | Say instead |
|---|---|
| “AGL is ISO 26262 certified.” | “This product uses specified AGL components; its ISO 26262 position depends on the complete item, configuration, process and evidence.” |
| “The AGL hypervisor is ASIL-capable.” | “The selected virtualization solution and its deployment require evidence against the item’s isolation and safety requirements.” |
| “Using the UCB gives us compliance.” | “The UCB provides reusable platform software; product-specific requirements and verification remain the program’s responsibility.” |
| “The 2018 virtualization paper proves qualification.” | “The 2018 document provides architecture context, not current release-specific qualification evidence.” |
| “AGL has no safety certificate.” | “A current, release-specific AGL safety manual, certificate or ASIL claim has not been established for this configuration.” |
Answering “How can I certify my embedded Linux for functional safety?”
Certification is not normally achieved by submitting a generic Linux distribution in isolation. Start with the vehicle item and its safety goals, then determine which software is safety-related, what evidence can be reused, and what additional development and verification are required for the integrated configuration. An assessor or approval authority will need a coherent argument covering the applicable standard, responsibilities, lifecycle, tools, architecture, tests and change control.
For an AGL-based product, the practical deliverable is therefore a product-specific safety case—not a blanket declaration that AGL itself is certified. The exact release, hardware, applications, isolation mechanisms and supplier evidence must remain under configuration control throughout development and production.
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