Re: * Re: 1.1.8: Too large entry in termcap file

[Christopher Faylor <cgf at redhat dot com>]

On Wed, Jun 20, 2001 at 04:27:37PM -0400, David A. Cobb wrote:
>At 6/18/01 06:12 AM (Monday), Alois Steindl wrote:
>>On Sat, 16 Jun 2001 23:29:36 -0400,
>>Christopher Faylor <cgf at redhat dot com> wrote:
>>
>>>Looking at the entry that is in termcap for linux, I don't see any way
>>>around this.  I did compare it against the entry from Red Hat and I see
>>>that they just squeak in under 1024.
>>
>>
>>I get 1042 for linux and 1034 for cygwin
>>
>>
>>>I compared the two and obviously the Cygwin version does have more "stuff"
>>>but I don't think that any of it is obviously wrong.  So, the trivial
>>>fix for this is to increase the size of your buffer.  I suspect that this
>>>is what most applications who use termcap had already done years ago.
>>the problem is, that the length 1024 is cited in the man page. Violating this
>>
>>constrained _is_ a bug and not "my alleged cygwin problem", as you stated 
>>in your email. As I wrote in my first message, the problem disappears if I 
>>increase this buffer or avoid termcap at all.
>>Increasing the limit silently (quite likely accidently) can break a lot of 
>>existing programs - like e.g. fweb - , even if it were documented in the 
>>man page. Buffer overflow is a major source of programming problems. Let's 
>>hope that this kind of errors is not growing in the Red Hat programs, 
>>since I use Linux Red Hat much more frequently than cygwin.
>
>[cgf:] To say nothing of security breaches.  I've had 3 BugTraq notices in 
>2 days about buffer overrun exploits in code that we include with Cygwin.

Please don't use cygwin if you are expecting a secure environment.

However, if you do have patches to rectify security problems, we will, of
course accept them.

termcap is a buffer overrun waiting to happen anyway, since the user can
easily specify their own termcap settings.


cgf

--
Want to unsubscribe from this list?
Check out: http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple