RE: [PATCH] staging: pi433: modify bit_rate from u16 to u32

From: David Laight
Date: Wed Feb 01 2023 - 07:35:01 EST


From: Guru Mehar Rachaputi
> Sent: 31 January 2023 10:20
...
> > > struct pi433_tx_cfg {
> > > __u32 frequency;
> > > - __u16 bit_rate;
> > > + __u32 bit_rate;
> > > __u32 dev_frequency;
> > > enum modulation modulation;
> > > enum mod_shaping mod_shaping;
> >
> > And didn't you just break existing userspace code? If not, how? If so,
> > how did you test this?
> >
> My apologies, I did not study code. While testing, the probe function of
> pi433 driver didn't appear in the lsmod operation. I suspected my
> testing was wrong.

You don't need to study any code, just the structure you changed.

On all architectures (except m68k) there is a two byte pad
after the bit_rate field, this is likely to be filled with
random data from the applications stack.

On little-endian architectures the low byte is in the same place,
so if the 'random data' is zero it will happen to work.

However, on big-endian architectures, the low byte moves so
the value passed (by old applications) will always be wrong.

In reality having a uapi structure with embedded padding should
be banned.
But that would need a compiler attribute to enforce it.

David

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