Bugtraq mailing list archives
Re: Fwd: Any user can panic OpenBSD machine
From: gert () GREENIE MUC DE (Gert Doering)
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1998 19:13:52 +0200
Hi, Chris Wedgwood wrote:
Linux 2.1.x (where x is my hacked up 10x kernel) sometimes succeeds, which is completely bogus and should be considered a bug of a different sort. Here, when the fd is 0 (or open("/dev/tty<blah>",O_RDONLY)), is will accept data from stdin/the-device and return it correctly. When the fd belongs to a file, it returns EFAULT as it should (which rules out the possibility of opening /dev/zero and doing bad things). I'm not sure why this is happening... I'll look into it later if nobody else does.
The reason why this works is clear. Linux 2.1 doesn't explicitely check the size given anymore (this just consumes CPU time, without giving any benefits). If the result of the read[v]() doesn't fit into the memory allocated to that program, the CPU will fault -> EFAULT. *If* it fits (read() calls from a device are allowed to return partial defaults, for example, one line at a time from a tty-like device), then there is no error from the kernel side. After all, who knows how big the buffers are? Who cares, as long as they are "large enough"? gert -- USENET is *not* the non-clickable part of WWW! //www.muc.de/~gert/ Gert Doering - Munich, Germany gert () greenie muc de fax: +49-89-35655025 gert.doering () physik tu-muenchen de
Current thread:
- Re: Fwd: Any user can panic OpenBSD machine, (continued)
- Re: Fwd: Any user can panic OpenBSD machine Kragen (Jul 28)
- Re: Fwd: Any user can panic OpenBSD machine Michael Jennings (Jul 28)
- Re: Fwd: Any user can panic OpenBSD machine Theo de Raadt (Jul 28)
- Re: Fwd: Any user can panic OpenBSD machine Michael Jennings (Jul 28)
- Re: Fwd: Any user can panic OpenBSD machine Theo de Raadt (Jul 28)
- Re: Fwd: Any user can panic OpenBSD machine Michael Jennings (Jul 28)
- Re: Fwd: Any user can panic OpenBSD machine Perry E. Metzger (Jul 28)
- Re: Fwd: Any user can panic OpenBSD machine Perry E. Metzger (Jul 27)
- Re: Fwd: Any user can panic OpenBSD machine Chris Wedgwood (Jul 27)
- Re: Fwd: Any user can panic OpenBSD machine Chris Wedgwood (Jul 27)
- Re: Fwd: Any user can panic OpenBSD machine Gert Doering (Jul 28)
- Re: Fwd: Any user can panic OpenBSD machine David Shaw (Jul 27)