Re: [PATCH 02/23] SUNRPC: Fix return type of svc_addr_len()

["J. Bruce Fields" <bfields@fieldses.org>]

On Wed, Apr 01, 2009 at 08:43:11PM -0500, Tom Tucker wrote:
> J. Bruce Fields wrote:
>> On Wed, Mar 18, 2009 at 08:45:36PM -0400, Chuck Lever wrote:
>>> The svc_addr_len() helper function can return a negative errno value,
>>> but its return type is size_t, which is unsigned.
>>>
>>> The RDMA transport code passes this return value directly to memset(),
>>> without checking first if it's negative.  This could cause memset() to
>>> clobber a large piece of memory if svc_addr_len() has returned an
>>> error.
>>
>> I'd still like to understand when this can happen, to better understand
>> how the error should be handled.
>
>
> I don't think that the current code base can cause this to occur.
>
> My recollection is that this code was added at the time we were  
> in-flight with the IPv6 integration and I was somewhat uncomfortable bug  
> checking on an unknown address type, however, this may in fact be the  
> right thing to do.
>
> I think changing the return type to int is fine.

OK, thanks.  So sounds like the consensus is that the return value
should either trigger a BUG() or just be ignored.--b.