[PATCH] ALSA: xen-front: refactor deprecated strncpy

From: Justin Stitt
Date: Thu Jul 27 2023 - 17:54:33 EST


`strncpy` is deprecated for use on NUL-terminated destination strings [1].

A suitable replacement is `strscpy` [2] due to the fact that it
guarantees NUL-termination on its destination buffer argument which is
_not_ always the case for `strncpy`!

It should be noted that, in this case, the destination buffer has a
length strictly greater than the source string. Moreover, the source
string is NUL-terminated (and so is the destination) which means there
was no real bug happening here. Nonetheless, this patch would get us one
step closer to eliminating the `strncpy` API in the kernel, as its use
is too ambiguous. We need to favor less ambiguous replacements such as:
strscpy, strscpy_pad, strtomem and strtomem_pad (amongst others).

Technically, my patch yields subtly different behavior. The original
implementation with `strncpy` would fill the entire destination buffer
with null bytes [3] while `strscpy` will leave the junk, uninitialized
bytes trailing after the _mandatory_ NUL-termination. So, if somehow
`pcm->name` or `card->driver/shortname/longname` require this
NUL-padding behavior then `strscpy_pad` should be used. My
interpretation, though, is that the aforementioned fields are just fine
as NUL-terminated strings. Please correct my assumptions if needed and
I'll send in a v2.

[1]: www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/process/deprecated.html#strncpy-on-nul-terminated-strings
[2]: manpages.debian.org/testing/linux-manual-4.8/strscpy.9.en.html
[3]: https://linux.die.net/man/3/strncpy

Link: https://github.com/KSPP/linux/issues/90
Signed-off-by: Justin Stitt <justinstitt@xxxxxxxxxx>
---
sound/xen/xen_snd_front_alsa.c | 8 ++++----
1 file changed, 4 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)

diff --git a/sound/xen/xen_snd_front_alsa.c b/sound/xen/xen_snd_front_alsa.c
index db917453a473..7a3dfce97c15 100644
--- a/sound/xen/xen_snd_front_alsa.c
+++ b/sound/xen/xen_snd_front_alsa.c
@@ -783,7 +783,7 @@ static int new_pcm_instance(struct xen_snd_front_card_info *card_info,
pcm->info_flags = 0;
/* we want to handle all PCM operations in non-atomic context */
pcm->nonatomic = true;
- strncpy(pcm->name, "Virtual card PCM", sizeof(pcm->name));
+ strscpy(pcm->name, "Virtual card PCM", sizeof(pcm->name));

if (instance_cfg->num_streams_pb)
snd_pcm_set_ops(pcm, SNDRV_PCM_STREAM_PLAYBACK,
@@ -835,9 +835,9 @@ int xen_snd_front_alsa_init(struct xen_snd_front_info *front_info)
goto fail;
}

- strncpy(card->driver, XENSND_DRIVER_NAME, sizeof(card->driver));
- strncpy(card->shortname, cfg->name_short, sizeof(card->shortname));
- strncpy(card->longname, cfg->name_long, sizeof(card->longname));
+ strscpy(card->driver, XENSND_DRIVER_NAME, sizeof(card->driver));
+ strscpy(card->shortname, cfg->name_short, sizeof(card->shortname));
+ strscpy(card->longname, cfg->name_long, sizeof(card->longname));

ret = snd_card_register(card);
if (ret < 0)

---
base-commit: 57012c57536f8814dec92e74197ee96c3498d24e
change-id: 20230727-sound-xen-398c9927b3d8

Best regards,
--
Justin Stitt <justinstitt@xxxxxxxxxx>