Re: [PATCH v2] scsi: ibmvscsi_tgt: replace deprecated strncpy with strscpy

From: Kees Cook
Date: Thu Jan 18 2024 - 17:43:44 EST


On Thu, Jan 18, 2024 at 12:21:04PM -0800, Tyrel Datwyler wrote:
> On 12/12/23 13:23, Kees Cook wrote:
> > On Tue, Dec 12, 2023 at 01:20:20AM +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 don't need the NUL-padding behavior that strncpy() provides as vscsi
> >> is NUL-allocated in ibmvscsis_probe() which proceeds to call
> >> ibmvscsis_adapter_info():
> >> | vscsi = kzalloc(sizeof(*vscsi), GFP_KERNEL);
> >>
> >> ibmvscsis_probe() -> ibmvscsis_handle_crq() -> ibmvscsis_parse_command()
> >> -> ibmvscsis_mad() -> ibmvscsis_process_mad() -> ibmvscsis_adapter_info()
> >>
> >> Following the same idea, `partition_name` is defiend as:
> >> | static char partition_name[PARTITION_NAMELEN] = "UNKNOWN";
> >> ... which is NUL-padded already, meaning strscpy() is the best option.
> >>
> >> 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.
> >>
> >> However, for cap->name and info let's use strscpy_pad as they are
> >> allocated via dma_alloc_coherent():
> >> | cap = dma_alloc_coherent(&vscsi->dma_dev->dev, olen, &token,
> >> | GFP_ATOMIC);
> >> &
> >> | info = dma_alloc_coherent(&vscsi->dma_dev->dev, sizeof(*info), &token,
> >> | GFP_ATOMIC);
> >>
> >> 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>
> >
> > This looks good to me. The only question that I haven't seen an answer
> > to from the maintainers is whether this is a __nonstring or not. It
> > really looks like it should be a C String, so with that assumption:
>
> To reaffirm the assumption, as I mentioned in my response to v1 these are
> intended to be handled as C strings.

Great; thanks! Are you taking this, or should I carry it in the
hardening tree?

-Kees

>
> Acked-by: Tyrel Datwyler <tyreld@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>
> >
> > Reviewed-by: Kees Cook <keescook@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> >
> > -Kees
> >
>

--
Kees Cook