Re: [Re: Linux 2.6.26-rc2] Write protect on on

Linus Torvalds
2008-05-19T16:40:31Z

On Mon, 19 May 2008, Boaz Harrosh wrote:

> Alan Stern wrote:
> >
> > Yes, it never worked properly. But now it fails in a bad way whereas
> > before it failed in a benign way.
>
> You do realize that, that was pure lock to have a zero'ed buffer.

Umm. Maybe it SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN!

The thing is, if we can get partial results back, we really *should*
either error out, or we should have at least cleared the buffer (either
beforehand or when seeing the partial result). Returning a buffer with the
old random contents is a bug.

And if clearing the buffer not only avoids any security holes and possible
undefined behavior, but _also_ ends up fixing the write protect sense
issue, all the better!

Linus