netdev - [PATCH][next] liquidio: Replace zero-length array with flexible-array member

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-next>] [day] [month] [year] [list]

Message-ID: <20200302205847.GA18593@embeddedor>
Date:   Mon, 2 Mar 2020 14:58:47 -0600
From:   "Gustavo A. R. Silva" <gustavo@...eddedor.com>
To:     Derek Chickles <dchickles@...vell.com>,
        Satanand Burla <sburla@...vell.com>,
        Felix Manlunas <fmanlunas@...vell.com>,
        "David S. Miller" <davem@...emloft.net>
Cc:     netdev@...r.kernel.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
        "Gustavo A. R. Silva" <gustavo@...eddedor.com>
Subject: [PATCH][next] liquidio: Replace zero-length array with
 flexible-array member

The current codebase makes use of the zero-length array language
extension to the C90 standard, but the preferred mechanism to declare
variable-length types such as these ones is a flexible array member[1][2],
introduced in C99:

struct foo {
        int stuff;
        struct boo array[];
};

By making use of the mechanism above, we will get a compiler warning
in case the flexible array does not occur last in the structure, which
will help us prevent some kind of undefined behavior bugs from being
inadvertently introduced[3] to the codebase from now on.

Also, notice that, dynamic memory allocations won't be affected by
this change:

"Flexible array members have incomplete type, and so the sizeof operator
may not be applied. As a quirk of the original implementation of
zero-length arrays, sizeof evaluates to zero."[1]

This issue was found with the help of Coccinelle.

[1] https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Zero-Length.html
[2] https://github.com/KSPP/linux/issues/21
[3] commit 76497732932f ("cxgb3/l2t: Fix undefined behaviour")

Signed-off-by: Gustavo A. R. Silva <gustavo@...eddedor.com>
---
 drivers/net/ethernet/cavium/liquidio/octeon_console.c | 2 +-
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/drivers/net/ethernet/cavium/liquidio/octeon_console.c b/drivers/net/ethernet/cavium/liquidio/octeon_console.c
index dfc77507b159..d0d581e98734 100644
--- a/drivers/net/ethernet/cavium/liquidio/octeon_console.c
+++ b/drivers/net/ethernet/cavium/liquidio/octeon_console.c
@@ -127,7 +127,7 @@ struct octeon_pci_console_desc {
 	u32 pad;
 	/* must be 64 bit aligned here... */
 	/* Array of addresses of octeon_pci_console structures */
-	u64 console_addr_array[0];
+	u64 console_addr_array[];
 	/* Implicit storage for console_addr_array */
 };
 
-- 
2.25.0