[PATCH v2] rtc: remove VLA usage

[PATCH v2] rtc: remove VLA usage

[Gustavo A. R. Silva]

In preparation to enabling -Wvla, remove VLA and replace it
with a fixed-length array instead.

>From a security viewpoint, the use of Variable Length Arrays can be
a vector for stack overflow attacks. Also, in general, as the code
evolves it is easy to lose track of how big a VLA can get. Thus, we
can end up having segfaults that are hard to debug.

Also, fixed as part of the directive to remove all VLAs from
the kernel: https://lkml.org/lkml/2018/3/7/621

Signed-off-by: Gustavo A. R. Silva <garsilva@embeddedor.com>
---
Changes in v2:
 - Update changelog as per Alexandre Belloni request.
 - Update the code for rtc-bq32k driver based on Alexandre's feedback.

 drivers/rtc/rtc-bq32k.c  | 6 +++++-
 drivers/rtc/rtc-mcp795.c | 2 +-
 2 files changed, 6 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/drivers/rtc/rtc-bq32k.c b/drivers/rtc/rtc-bq32k.c
index e8698e9..ef52741 100644
--- a/drivers/rtc/rtc-bq32k.c
+++ b/drivers/rtc/rtc-bq32k.c
@@ -36,6 +36,10 @@
 #define BQ32K_CFG2		0x09	/* Trickle charger control */
 #define BQ32K_TCFE		BIT(6)	/* Trickle charge FET bypass */
 
+#define MAX_LEN			10	/* Maximum number of consecutive
+					 * register for this particular RTC.
+					 */
+
 struct bq32k_regs {
 	uint8_t		seconds;
 	uint8_t		minutes;
@@ -74,7 +78,7 @@ static int bq32k_read(struct device *dev, void *data, uint8_t off, uint8_t len)
 static int bq32k_write(struct device *dev, void *data, uint8_t off, uint8_t len)
 {
 	struct i2c_client *client = to_i2c_client(dev);
-	uint8_t buffer[len + 1];
+	uint8_t buffer[MAX_LEN + 1];
 
 	buffer[0] = off;
 	memcpy(&buffer[1], data, len);
diff --git a/drivers/rtc/rtc-mcp795.c b/drivers/rtc/rtc-mcp795.c
index 79e24ea..00e11c1 100644
--- a/drivers/rtc/rtc-mcp795.c
+++ b/drivers/rtc/rtc-mcp795.c
@@ -82,7 +82,7 @@ static int mcp795_rtcc_write(struct device *dev, u8 addr, u8 *data, u8 count)
 {
 	struct spi_device *spi = to_spi_device(dev);
 	int ret;
-	u8 tx[2 + count];
+	u8 tx[257];
 
 	tx[0] = MCP795_WRITE;
 	tx[1] = addr;
-- 
2.7.4

Re: [PATCH v2] rtc: remove VLA usage

[Alexandre Belloni]

On 07/03/2018 at 20:27:56 -0600, Gustavo A. R. Silva wrote:
> In preparation to enabling -Wvla, remove VLA and replace it
> with a fixed-length array instead.
> 
> From a security viewpoint, the use of Variable Length Arrays can be
> a vector for stack overflow attacks. Also, in general, as the code
> evolves it is easy to lose track of how big a VLA can get. Thus, we
> can end up having segfaults that are hard to debug.
> 
> Also, fixed as part of the directive to remove all VLAs from
> the kernel: https://lkml.org/lkml/2018/3/7/621
> 

That is a good description, thanks

> Signed-off-by: Gustavo A. R. Silva <garsilva@embeddedor.com>
> ---
> Changes in v2:
>  - Update changelog as per Alexandre Belloni request.
>  - Update the code for rtc-bq32k driver based on Alexandre's feedback.
> 
>  drivers/rtc/rtc-bq32k.c  | 6 +++++-
>  drivers/rtc/rtc-mcp795.c | 2 +-
>  2 files changed, 6 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
> 
Applied.

-- 
Alexandre Belloni, Bootlin (formerly Free Electrons)
Embedded Linux and Kernel engineering
https://bootlin.com