Re: infelicity in context_user_set; new syscalls: setfileconat, etc.?

[Jim Meyering <jim@meyering.net>]

Karl MacMillan <kmacmillan@mentalrootkit.com> wrote:

> On Sat, 2006-07-29 at 16:50 +0200, Jim Meyering wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> I've just discovered what may be a documentation error
>> for context_user_set, context_role_set, etc.
>>
>> Those functions are documented as setting errno upon failure,
>> yet the following program prints "failed with errno=0":
>>
>>   #include <stdio.h>
>>   #include <errno.h>
>>   #include <selinux/context.h>
>>
>>   int
>>   main ()
>>   {
>>     context_t c = context_new ("a:b:c");
>>     if (!c)
>>       return 1;
>>     errno = 0;
>>     if (context_user_set (c, ":") != 0)
>>       printf ("failed with errno=%d\n", errno);
>>     return 0;
>>   }
>>
>
> Looks like a documentation error to me - there is no attempt to set
> errno in the code. In fact, most of libselinux looks like errno will
> only get set as a result of a call to a lower level library function
> (e.g., open or getxattr).
>
> Can you create a patch to correct the documentation?

I've looked at the code and now feel that the documentation
should continue to say those functions set errno on failure.
There are many ways in which context_user_set can fail and
set errno to a useful value.  Callers should be able to use
errno in all cases.

The solution is to ensure that whenever those functions
fail they set errno to *something*.  In the case above,
a tiny change to src/context.c would accomplish this,
using EINVAL to tell the caller that ":" is invalid:

--- src/context.c.~1~	2006-07-31 18:29:01.000000000 +0200
+++ src/context.c	2006-07-31 18:30:57.000000000 +0200
@@ -2,6 +2,7 @@
 #include <string.h>
 #include <stdio.h>
 #include <stdlib.h>
+#include <errno.h>
 
 #define COMP_USER  0
 #define COMP_ROLE  1
@@ -157,6 +158,7 @@ static int set_comp(context_private_t *
 			if (*p == '\t' || *p == '\n' || *p == '\r' ||
 			    ((*p == ':' || *p == ' ') && idx != COMP_RANGE)) {
 				free(t);
+				errno = EINVAL;
 				return 1;
 			}
 		}

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