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Linus Torvalds 9022ed0e7e strscpy: write destination buffer only once
The point behind strscpy() was to once and for all avoid all the
problems with 'strncpy()' and later broken "fixed" versions like
strlcpy() that just made things worse.

So strscpy not only guarantees NUL-termination (unlike strncpy), it also
doesn't do unnecessary padding at the destination.  But at the same time
also avoids byte-at-a-time reads and writes by _allowing_ some extra NUL
writes - within the size, of course - so that the whole copy can be done
with word operations.

It is also stable in the face of a mutable source string: it explicitly
does not read the source buffer multiple times (so an implementation
using "strnlen()+memcpy()" would be wrong), and does not read the source
buffer past the size (like the mis-design that is strlcpy does).

Finally, the return value is designed to be simple and unambiguous: if
the string cannot be copied fully, it returns an actual negative error,
making error handling clearer and simpler (and the caller already knows
the size of the buffer).  Otherwise it returns the string length of the
result.

However, there was one final stability issue that can be important to
callers: the stability of the destination buffer.

In particular, the same way we shouldn't read the source buffer more
than once, we should avoid doing multiple writes to the destination
buffer: first writing a potentially non-terminated string, and then
terminating it with NUL at the end does not result in a stable result
buffer.

Yes, it gives the right result in the end, but if the rule for the
destination buffer was that it is _always_ NUL-terminated even when
accessed concurrently with updates, the final byte of the buffer needs
to always _stay_ as a NUL byte.

[ Note that "final byte is NUL" here is literally about the final byte
  in the destination array, not the terminating NUL at the end of the
  string itself. There is no attempt to try to make concurrent reads and
  writes give any kind of consistent string length or contents, but we
  do want to guarantee that there is always at least that final
  terminating NUL character at the end of the destination array if it
  existed before ]

This is relevant in the kernel for the tsk->comm[] array, for example.
Even without locking (for either readers or writers), we want to know
that while the buffer contents may be garbled, it is always a valid C
string and always has a NUL character at 'comm[TASK_COMM_LEN-1]' (and
never has any "out of thin air" data).

So avoid any "copy possibly non-terminated string, and terminate later"
behavior, and write the destination buffer only once.

Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2024-12-01 12:17:16 -08:00
arch ARM: 2024-11-30 14:51:08 -08:00
block block-6.13-20242901 2024-11-30 15:47:29 -08:00
certs sign-file,extract-cert: use pkcs11 provider for OPENSSL MAJOR >= 3 2024-09-20 19:52:48 +03:00
crypto Random number generator updates for Linux 6.13-rc1. 2024-11-19 10:43:44 -08:00
Documentation ARM: 2024-11-30 14:51:08 -08:00
drivers pci-v6.13-fixes-1 2024-11-30 18:23:05 -08:00
fs This pull request contains the following changes for UML: 2024-11-30 10:34:54 -08:00
include block-6.13-20242901 2024-11-30 15:47:29 -08:00
init - The series "resource: A couple of cleanups" from Andy Shevchenko 2024-11-25 16:09:48 -08:00
io_uring io_uring-6.13-20242901 2024-11-30 15:43:02 -08:00
ipc - The series "resource: A couple of cleanups" from Andy Shevchenko 2024-11-25 16:09:48 -08:00
kernel dma-mapping fix for Linux 6.13 2024-11-30 15:36:17 -08:00
lib strscpy: write destination buffer only once 2024-12-01 12:17:16 -08:00
LICENSES LICENSES: add 0BSD license text 2024-09-01 20:43:24 -07:00
mm Kbuild updates for v6.13 2024-11-30 13:41:50 -08:00
net 9p update for 6.13-rc1 2024-11-30 10:28:14 -08:00
rust block-6.13-20242901 2024-11-30 15:47:29 -08:00
samples TTY / Serial driver updates for 6.13-rc1 2024-11-30 09:03:16 -08:00
scripts Kbuild updates for v6.13 2024-11-30 13:41:50 -08:00
security lsm/stable-6.13 PR 20241129 2024-11-30 18:14:56 -08:00
sound sound fixes for 6.13-rc1 2024-11-29 13:01:05 -08:00
tools turbostat version 2024.11.30 2024-11-30 18:30:22 -08:00
usr initramfs: shorten cmd_initfs in usr/Makefile 2024-07-16 01:07:52 +09:00
virt VFIO updates for v6.13 2024-11-27 12:57:03 -08:00
.clang-format clang-format: Update with v6.11-rc1's for_each macro list 2024-08-02 13:20:31 +02:00
.clippy.toml rust: enable Clippy's check-private-items 2024-10-07 21:39:57 +02:00
.cocciconfig scripts: add Linux .cocciconfig for coccinelle 2016-07-22 12:13:39 +02:00
.editorconfig .editorconfig: remove trim_trailing_whitespace option 2024-06-13 16:47:52 +02:00
.get_maintainer.ignore MAINTAINERS: Retire Ralf Baechle 2024-11-12 15:48:59 +01:00
.gitattributes .gitattributes: set diff driver for Rust source code files 2023-05-31 17:48:25 +02:00
.gitignore Kbuild updates for v6.13 2024-11-30 13:41:50 -08:00
.mailmap media updates for v6.13-rc1 2024-11-20 14:01:15 -08:00
.rustfmt.toml rust: add .rustfmt.toml 2022-09-28 09:02:20 +02:00
COPYING COPYING: state that all contributions really are covered by this file 2020-02-10 13:32:20 -08:00
CREDITS cgroup: Changes for v6.13 2024-11-20 09:54:49 -08:00
Kbuild Kbuild updates for v6.1 2022-10-10 12:00:45 -07:00
Kconfig kbuild: ensure full rebuild when the compiler is updated 2020-05-12 13:28:33 +09:00
MAINTAINERS Kbuild updates for v6.13 2024-11-30 13:41:50 -08:00
Makefile Kbuild updates for v6.13 2024-11-30 13:41:50 -08:00
README README: Fix spelling 2024-03-18 03:36:32 -06:00

Linux kernel
============

There are several guides for kernel developers and users. These guides can
be rendered in a number of formats, like HTML and PDF. Please read
Documentation/admin-guide/README.rst first.

In order to build the documentation, use ``make htmldocs`` or
``make pdfdocs``.  The formatted documentation can also be read online at:

    https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/

There are various text files in the Documentation/ subdirectory,
several of them using the reStructuredText markup notation.

Please read the Documentation/process/changes.rst file, as it contains the
requirements for building and running the kernel, and information about
the problems which may result by upgrading your kernel.