Re: [PATCH] mm: Check for NULL return values from allocatingfunctions

From: Jan Kara
Date: Fri Oct 18 2013 - 04:40:41 EST


On Thu 17-10-13 07:49:34, Laura Abbott wrote:
> A security audit revealed that several functions were not checking
> return value of allocation functions. These allocations may return
> NULL which may lead to NULL pointer dereferences and crashes or
> security concerns. Fix this by properly checking the return value
> and handling the error appropriately.
>
> Signed-off-by: Laura Abbott <lauraa@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> ---
> fs/buffer.c | 17 +++++++++++------
> 1 files changed, 11 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/fs/buffer.c b/fs/buffer.c
> index 4d74335..b53f863 100644
> --- a/fs/buffer.c
> +++ b/fs/buffer.c
> @@ -1561,6 +1561,9 @@ void create_empty_buffers(struct page *page,
> struct buffer_head *bh, *head, *tail;
>
> head = alloc_page_buffers(page, blocksize, 1);
> + if (head == NULL)
> + return;
> +
This cannot happen. alloc_page_buffers() is called with retry == 1 and
thus it will loop until it gets the memory it wants.

> bh = head;
> do {
> bh->b_state |= b_state;
> @@ -3008,16 +3011,18 @@ int _submit_bh(int rw, struct buffer_head *bh, unsigned long bio_flags)
> BUG_ON(buffer_unwritten(bh));
>
> /*
> - * Only clear out a write error when rewriting
> - */
> - if (test_set_buffer_req(bh) && (rw & WRITE))
> - clear_buffer_write_io_error(bh);
> -
> - /*
> * from here on down, it's all bio -- do the initial mapping,
> * submit_bio -> generic_make_request may further map this bio around
> */
> bio = bio_alloc(GFP_NOIO, 1);
> + if (bio == NULL)
> + return -ENOMEM;
And the same is true here. If the gfp mask has __GFP_WAIT set (and
GFP_NOIO does have that), mempool_alloc() loops until it gets the memory.
So I agree we might be missing some details in documentation but the code
is correct.

Honza

> +
> + /*
> + * Only clear out a write error when rewriting
> + */
> + if (test_set_buffer_req(bh) && (rw & WRITE))
> + clear_buffer_write_io_error(bh);
>
> bio->bi_sector = bh->b_blocknr * (bh->b_size >> 9);
> bio->bi_bdev = bh->b_bdev;
--
Jan Kara <jack@xxxxxxx>
SUSE Labs, CR
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