Re: Why side-effects on open(2) are evil. (was Re: [RFD w/info-PATCH]

Alexander Viro (viro@math.psu.edu)
Sat, 19 May 2001 10:58:46 -0400 (EDT)


On Sat, 19 May 2001 Andries.Brouwer@cwi.nl wrote:

> > A lot of stuff relies on the fact that close(open(foo, O_RDONLY))
> > is a no-op. Breaking that assumption is a Bad Thing(tm).
>
> Also here I would like to agree. Unfortunately this is false.
> Opening device files often has interesting side effects.

Too bad. They can be triggered by similar races between attacker
changing the type of object (file<->symlink) and backup.

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