questions about fb_pan_display ioctl

questions about fb_pan_display ioctl

[Arvind Sankar]

I was looking through the source, and am mightily confused as to how this
works.

1. The FBIOPAN_DISPLAY ioctl does not error-check var.
2. fb_pan_display uses info->var to bounds-check var->?offset.
3. fb_pan_display modifies info->var, but var is what is returned by the ioctl.
4. The function pointer info->fbops->fb_pan_display takes its args in the opposite
   order to fb_pan_display! Who came up with this?
5. vesafb_pan_display uses var to bounds-check var->?offset, which is
   (a) pointless, since fb_pan_display has bounds-checked it already.
   (b) buggy, since var has never been error-checked, so var->yres could be anything.
6. How does wrapping work, when fb_pan_display has already made sure that yoffset
   cannot cause display to go beyond yres_virtual? The checks in vesafb_pan_display
   do this only when ywrap is disabled, but fb_pan_display always does it.
7. vesafb never uses more than 16mb of video ram, so wrapping can _never_ happen on
   boards with more than 16mb of ram, no?

All these comments refer to 2.6.0-test4. Point 6 should apply to all the fb devices,
not just vesafb.

In 2.4.22, there is no fb_pan_display, but vesafb_pan_display is the same, so it
turns out that wrapping is allowed, but subject to the issues in 5(b) and 7. The issue
in 7 is actually worse, because unless the vram option is passed, the video size is
computed from the mode resolution, so it has nothing to do with the actual amount of
accessible video memory.

-- arvind


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