Re: [PATCH v6 4/4] fortify: Add Clang support

Nick Desaulniers
2022-02-03T20:44:01Z

On Thu, Feb 3, 2022 at 9:33 AM Kees Cook <keescook@chromium.org> wrote:
>
> Enable FORTIFY_SOURCE support for Clang:
>
> Use the new __pass_object_size and __overloadable attributes so
> that Clang will have appropriate visibility into argument sizes such
> that __builtin_object_size(p, 1) will behave correctly. Additional
> details here:
> https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/issues/53516
> https://github.com/ClangBuiltLinux/linux/issues/1401
>
> When available, use the new __diagnose_as attribute to make sure no
> compile-time diagnostic warnings are lost due to the effectively renamed
> string functions.

Consider adding something along the lines of the following to the
above paragraph:
Without diagnose_as, compile time error messages won't be as precise
as they could be, but at least users of older toolchains will have
fortified routines. That is more valuable, but certainly a tradeoff.

>
> Redefine strlen() as a macro that tests for being a constant expression
> so that strlen() can still be used in static initializers, which was
> lost when adding __pass_object_size and __overloadable.

I'd like to see `const` changes explicit in 4/4; I suspect that's
_why_ __overloadable is even needed? If so, then a comment here about
that wouldn't hurt.

Having const be more explicit in the signature will make it more
obvious why the definition cannot modify the parameter.

--
Thanks,
~Nick Desaulniers