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

[Ricky Beam]

On Tue, 6 Nov 2001 [e-mail] 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