Re: [PATCH] getsockopt() early argument sanity checking

[Solar Designer <solar@openwall.com>]

On Sun, Aug 20, 2006 at 08:38:34PM +0200, Andi Kleen wrote:
> On Sunday 20 August 2006 18:16, Solar Designer wrote:
> > On Sun, Aug 20, 2006 at 10:34:43AM +0200, Andi Kleen wrote:
> > > In general I don't think it makes sense to submit stuff for 2.4 
> > > that isn't in 2.6.
> > 
> > In general I agree, however right now I had the choice between
> > submitting these changes for 2.4 first and not submitting them at all
> > (at least for some months more).  I chose the former.
> 
> If there is really a length checking bug it shouldn't be that hard to fix it 
> in both.

There were such length checking bugs being discovered and fixed in the
past.  In particular, many got fixed between 2.2.18 and 2.2.19; that was
also when I added this hardening measure to -ow patches (starting with
2.2.19-ow1 released 5 years ago).

Of course, any known bugs should be fixed ASAP, but to me that is not a
sufficient reason to not keep a hardening measure like this.  It's just
a matter of opinion.

Alexander