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Message-ID: <2be27aee-1a2d-4c5c-bb62-018e1340d2ad@rowland.harvard.edu>
Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2023 14:22:35 -0400
From: Alan Stern <stern@...land.harvard.edu>
To: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>
Cc: Valery Zabrovsky <valthebrewer@...dex.ru>,
Guo Zhengkui <guozhengkui@...o.com>,
Aaro Koskinen <aaro.koskinen@....fi>,
Mian Yousaf Kaukab <yousaf.kaukab@...el.com>,
Felipe Balbi <balbi@...com>,
Alexey Khoroshilov <khoroshilov@...ras.ru>,
linux-usb@...r.kernel.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
lvc-project@...uxtesting.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH] usb: gadget: net2280: fix NULL pointer dereference
On Thu, Mar 16, 2023 at 05:19:35PM +0100, Greg Kroah-Hartman wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 16, 2023 at 06:53:55PM +0300, Valery Zabrovsky wrote:
> > In net2280_free_request():
> > If _ep is NULL, then ep is NULL and is dereferenced
> > while trying to produce an error message.
>
> How can that ever happen? How did you test and hit this?
>
> > The patch replaces dev_err() with pr_err() which works fine.
>
> That's not a good idea for driver code to use, sorry.
>
> > Found by Linux Verification Center (linuxtesting.org) with SVACE.
>
> As I have said before, your testing framework needs a lot more work.
>
> good luck!
In situations like this, it might be better to remove the check
entirely. If a driver does pass a NULL pointer, it will lead to an
invalid pointer dereference which will certainly cause an oops and might
very well crash the system. That would be a lot more noticeable than an
error message hidden in a kernel log!
Greg, is there any general policy about the need for sanity checks such
as this one? Like, don't put them in whenever a failure would lead
to an immediate fault which would be easy to track down?
Alan Stern
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