Re: [PATCH v2] net: mdio_bus: replace deprecated strncpy with strscpy

From: Kees Cook
Date: Fri Dec 08 2023 - 12:23:59 EST


On Thu, Dec 07, 2023 at 09:57:50PM +0000, Justin Stitt wrote:
> strncpy() is deprecated for use on NUL-terminated destination strings
> [1] and as such we should prefer more robust and less ambiguous string
> interfaces.
>
> We expect mdiodev->modalias to be NUL-terminated based on its usage with
> strcmp():
> | return strcmp(mdiodev->modalias, drv->name) == 0;
>
> Moreover, mdiodev->modalias is already zero-allocated:
> | mdiodev = kzalloc(sizeof(*mdiodev), GFP_KERNEL);
> ... which means the NUL-padding strncpy provides is not necessary.
>
> Considering the above, a suitable replacement is `strscpy` [2] due to
> the fact that it guarantees NUL-termination on the destination buffer
> without unnecessarily NUL-padding.
>
> Link: https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/process/deprecated.html#strncpy-on-nul-terminated-strings [1]
> Link: https://manpages.debian.org/testing/linux-manual-4.8/strscpy.9.en.html [2]
> Link: https://github.com/KSPP/linux/issues/90
> Cc: linux-hardening@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Signed-off-by: Justin Stitt <justinstitt@xxxxxxxxxx>

Yeah, the subject is distinct now. :)

Reviewed-by: Kees Cook <keescook@xxxxxxxxxxxx>

--
Kees Cook