Re: PROPOSAL: dot-proc interface [was: /proc stuff]

Ricky Beam
2001-11-06T23:39:38Z

On Tue, 6 Nov 2001 dank@trellisinc.com wrote:
>"code poet?" you've plucked an 80 from the air. regardless of what the
>kernel prints now and how it's limited (deep within drivers/block/genhd.c),
>there is no reference to this silent 63 via either explicit comment or
>pure code. your code remains happily ignorant of any modification to this
>postcondition, and when that changes (as it surely will), you lose. it's
>uninspired coding like the above that keeps the buffer overflow
>technique alive.

Exactly. Just because the code _currently_ won't generate more than 63
chars doesn't mean it always will. And who says the application will see
the true, kernel generated "/proc/partitions"? <raises eyebrow>

>c string processing is all of doable, mature, and meticulous. "done
>properly by beginners" is not how i would describe it.

Experience shows beginners rarely get thing right the first time out. (Or
the second or third time if they are like some of my previous students.)

--Ricky