From: "Daniel P. Berrangé" <berrange@redhat.com>
To: qemu-devel@nongnu.org
Cc: "Alex Bennée" <alex.bennee@linaro.org>,
"Paolo Bonzini" <pbonzini@redhat.com>,
devel@lists.libvirt.org,
"Marc-André Lureau" <marcandre.lureau@redhat.com>,
"Daniel P. Berrangé" <berrange@redhat.com>,
"Pierrick Bouvier" <pierrick.bouvier@oss.qualcomm.com>
Subject: [PULL v2 13/13] docs/system/security: exclude uninitialized stack variables as bugs
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 2026 17:06:43 +0100 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20260904160643.353833-14-berrange@redhat.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20260904160643.353833-1-berrange@redhat.com>
The -ftrivial-auto-var-init=zero usage guarantees implicit zero
initializers for all stack variables. Thus most bug reports relying
on undefined behaviour from lack of variable initialization will
not be security issues, or even bugs.
Reviewed-by: Marc-André Lureau <marcandre.lureau@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Daniel P. Berrangé <berrange@redhat.com>
---
docs/system/security.rst | 10 ++++++++++
1 file changed, 10 insertions(+)
diff --git a/docs/system/security.rst b/docs/system/security.rst
index af626a4230..8c42d1a6d8 100644
--- a/docs/system/security.rst
+++ b/docs/system/security.rst
@@ -143,6 +143,16 @@ an issue as a normal bug.
which case plain manipulation of the stream is not considered as
an attack vector.
+* **uninitialized stack variables**. If the bug scenario relies on
+ undefined behaviour from stack variables that lack explicit
+ initialization, it will not usually be considered a security flaw.
+ The build system adds '-ftrivial-auto-var-init=zero', which is
+ available in both the supported compilers (GCC and CLang) and
+ ensures all stack variables have implicit zero-initializers.
+ This eliminates undefined behaviour and usually gives the
+ correct desired initialization value, eliminating most of the
+ bug scenarios wrt uninitialized stack variables.
+
* **low severity impact**. As a catch all rule, issues which
are judged to have a "low" severity impact on the system will
usually not justify handling as security bugs, nor assignment
--
2.55.0
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2026-09-04 16:08 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 16+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2026-09-04 16:06 [PULL v2 00/13] Misc fixes patches Daniel P. Berrangé
2026-09-04 16:06 ` [PULL v2 01/13] crypto: Use g_autofree Daniel P. Berrangé
2026-09-04 16:06 ` [PULL v2 02/13] crypto/x509-utils: don't double set errp Daniel P. Berrangé
2026-09-04 16:06 ` [PULL v2 03/13] crypto/x509-utils: propagate the error Daniel P. Berrangé
2026-09-04 16:06 ` [PULL v2 04/13] io/channel-socket: do not treat a zero length write as an error Daniel P. Berrangé
2026-09-04 16:06 ` [PULL v2 05/13] io/channel-websock: send an HTTP 400 when the greeting has no space Daniel P. Berrangé
2026-09-04 16:06 ` [PULL v2 06/13] io/channel-websock: handle a blocked write during the handshake Daniel P. Berrangé
2026-09-04 16:06 ` [PULL v2 07/13] tests/unit: add websock handshake test Daniel P. Berrangé
2026-09-04 16:06 ` [PULL v2 08/13] io/channel-websock: do not lose QIO_CHANNEL_ERR_BLOCK while reading Daniel P. Berrangé
2026-09-04 16:06 ` [PULL v2 09/13] tests/unit: cover blocked IO during the websock handshake Daniel P. Berrangé
2026-09-04 16:06 ` [PULL v2 10/13] crypto: deprecate the AF_ALG crypto backend Daniel P. Berrangé
2026-09-04 16:06 ` [PULL v2 11/13] gitlab: use --emacs --quiet for checkpatch.pl instead of --terse Daniel P. Berrangé
2026-09-04 16:06 ` [PULL v2 12/13] configure: correctly honour --disable-containers Daniel P. Berrangé
2026-09-07 10:48 ` Daniel P. Berrangé
2026-09-04 16:06 ` Daniel P. Berrangé [this message]
2026-09-06 14:14 ` [PULL v2 00/13] Misc fixes patches Peter Maydell
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