linux-kernel - Re: [patch] pipe: Don't oops when pipe filesystem isn't mounted

lists.openwall.net		lists / announce owl-users owl-dev john-users john-dev passwdqc-users yescrypt popa3d-users / oss-security kernel-hardening musl sabotage tlsify passwords / crypt-dev xvendor / Bugtraq Full-Disclosure linux-kernel linux-netdev linux-ext4 linux-hardening linux-cve-announce PHC
Open Source and information security mailing list archives

Hash Suite: Windows password security audit tool. GUI, reports in PDF.

[<prev] [next>] [<thread-prev] [thread-next>] [day] [month] [year] [list]

Date:	Mon, 11 Dec 2006 07:44:33 -0800 (PST)
From:	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...l.org>
To:	Chuck Ebbert <76306.1226@...puserve.com>
cc:	linux-kernel <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@...l.org>
Subject: Re: [patch] pipe: Don't oops when pipe filesystem isn't mounted

On Mon, 11 Dec 2006, Chuck Ebbert wrote:
>
> Prevent oops when an app tries to create a pipe while pipefs
> is not mounted.

Have you actually seen this, or is this just from looking at code?

Quite frankly, if "pipe_mnt" is ever NULL, we're dead for lots of other 
reasons. 

In fact, pipe_mnt can't be NULL. The way it is initialized is:

	pipe_mnt = kern_mount(&pipe_fs_type);

and pipe_mnt doesn't even return NULL - it returns an error pointer, so if 
"kern_mount()" were to have failed, pipe_mnt will be some random invalid 
pointer that could only be tested with IS_ERR(), not by comparing against 
NULL.

But more fundamentally - we might as well oops. We need to panic or oops 
or do _something_ bad at some point anyway, because it's MUCH better to 
fail spectacularly than it would be to just silently fail without a pipe.

Hmm?

		Linus
-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@...r.kernel.org
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/