linux-kernel - Re: [regression] nf_iterate(), BUG: unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference

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Message-Id: <1216905109.15519.200.camel@calx>
Date:	Thu, 24 Jul 2008 08:11:49 -0500
From:	Matt Mackall <mpm@...enic.com>
To:	Herbert Xu <herbert@...dor.apana.org.au>
Cc:	Pekka Enberg <penberg@...helsinki.fi>,
	Patrick McHardy <kaber@...sh.net>, Ingo Molnar <mingo@...e.hu>,
	David Miller <davem@...emloft.net>, w@....eu,
	davidn@...idnewall.com, torvalds@...ux-foundation.org,
	akpm@...ux-foundation.org, netdev@...r.kernel.org,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, stefanr@...6.in-berlin.de,
	rjw@...k.pl, ilpo.jarvinen@...sinki.fi,
	Dave Jones <davej@...hat.com>,
	Christoph Lameter <cl@...ux-foundation.org>
Subject: Re: [regression] nf_iterate(), BUG: unable to handle kernel NULL
	pointer dereference


On Thu, 2008-07-24 at 20:50 +0800, Herbert Xu wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 03:40:40PM +0300, Pekka Enberg wrote:
> >
> > Using ksize() for skbs will crash your kernel for some configurations
> > because calling that function for memory allocated with
> > kmem_cache_alloc() is not supported by all the allocators (well,
> > SLOB).
> 
> So how about fixing the interface so that it can return an error
> to indicate that the allocator doesn't support it?

You don't honestly expect people to correctly code to such a standard,
do you? People will assume that ksize never fails, they will be wrong,
and computers will die.

>  You're taking
> away an entire interface just because an underlying implementation
> that's used by a very small proportion of users doesn't do the
> right thing.

Umm, no. There were very few users to being with, so it was actually a
fairly large proportion. And that suggested the interface was a bad
idea.

-- 
Mathematics is the supreme nostalgia of our time.

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