linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v4 43/45] namei: initialize parameters passed to step

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Message-ID: <20220704182310.GQ25951@gate.crashing.org>
Date:   Mon, 4 Jul 2022 13:23:10 -0500
From:   Segher Boessenkool <segher@...nel.crashing.org>
To:     Alexander Potapenko <glider@...gle.com>
Cc:     Al Viro <viro@...iv.linux.org.uk>,
        Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
        Alexei Starovoitov <ast@...nel.org>,
        Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
        Andrey Konovalov <andreyknvl@...gle.com>,
        Andy Lutomirski <luto@...nel.org>,
        Arnd Bergmann <arnd@...db.de>, Borislav Petkov <bp@...en8.de>,
        Christoph Hellwig <hch@....de>,
        Christoph Lameter <cl@...ux.com>,
        David Rientjes <rientjes@...gle.com>,
        Dmitry Vyukov <dvyukov@...gle.com>,
        Eric Dumazet <edumazet@...gle.com>,
        Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>,
        Herbert Xu <herbert@...dor.apana.org.au>,
        Ilya Leoshkevich <iii@...ux.ibm.com>,
        Ingo Molnar <mingo@...hat.com>, Jens Axboe <axboe@...nel.dk>,
        Joonsoo Kim <iamjoonsoo.kim@....com>,
        Kees Cook <keescook@...omium.org>,
        Marco Elver <elver@...gle.com>,
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        "Michael S. Tsirkin" <mst@...hat.com>,
        Pekka Enberg <penberg@...nel.org>,
        Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>,
        Petr Mladek <pmladek@...e.com>,
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        Nick Desaulniers <ndesaulniers@...gle.com>,
        Vitaly Buka <vitalybuka@...gle.com>,
        linux-toolchains <linux-toolchains@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v4 43/45] namei: initialize parameters passed to step_into()

On Mon, Jul 04, 2022 at 05:49:13PM +0200, Alexander Potapenko wrote:
> One of the reasons to do so is standard compliance - passing an
> uninitialized value to a function is UB in C11, as Segher pointed out
> here: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-toolchains/20220614214039.GA25951@gate.crashing.org/
> The compilers may not be smart enough to take advantage of this _yet_,
> but I wouldn't underestimate their ability to evolve (especially that
> of Clang).

GCC doesn't currently detect this UB, and doesn't even warn or error for
this, although that shouldn't be hard to do: it is all completely local.
An error is warranted here, and you won't get UB ever either then.

> I also believe it's fragile to rely on the callee to ignore certain
> parameters: it may be doing so today, but if someone changes
> step_into() tomorrow we may miss it.

There isn't any choice usually, this is C, do you want varargs?  :-)

But yes, you always should only pass "safe" values; callers should do
their part, and not assume the callee will do in the future as it does
now.  Defensive programming is mostly about defending your own sanity!


Segher