Re: [PATCH 2.6]: IPv6: strcpy -> strlcpy

[Felipe Alfaro Solana <felipe_alfaro@linuxmail.org>]

On Thu, 2003-11-27 at 23:19, Russell King wrote:

> You misunderstand me.  Consider the difference between:

OK, it's perfectly clear now :-)

> Note my final sentence there.  Consider the following:
> 
> 	char foo[256];
> 
> 	strlcpy(foo, "hello", sizeof(foo);
> 
> 	copy_to_user(uptr, foo, sizeof(foo));
> 
> That ends up writing uninitialised kernel data to (unprivileged) user
> space.  So would strcpy() used in that situation.
> 
> strncpy() on the other hand, will zero the rest of the buffer (on x86
> at least) but you'll have to manually ensure that there is a terminator
> on the end.  Or, you use strlcpy but memset the entire space you're
> copying the string into beforehand, which could be wasteful.
> 
> Note: we should really fix the generic strncpy() - there are places in
> the kernel source which rely on the x86 strncpy() behaviour today (eg,
> binfmt_*.c core file generation.)

So, as I see:

1. We should fix strncpy()
2. I should replace strlcpy() with strncpy() in my patches.