[PATCH] mwifiex: don't print SSID to logs

[PATCH] mwifiex: don't print SSID to logs

[Brian Norris]

There are a few reasons not to dump SSIDs as-is in kernel logs:

1) they're not guaranteed to be any particular text encoding (UTF-8,
   ASCII, ...) in general
2) it's somewhat redundant; the BSSID should be enough to uniquely
   identify the AP/STA to which we're connecting
3) BSSIDs have an easily-recognized format, whereas SSIDs do not (they
   are free-form)
4) other common drivers (e.g., everything based on mac80211) get along
   just fine by only including BSSIDs when logging state transitions

Additional notes on reason #3: this is important for the
privacy-conscious, especially when providing tools that convey
kernel logs on behalf of a user -- e.g., when reporting bugs. So for
example, it's easy to automatically filter logs for MAC addresses, but
it's much harder to filter SSIDs out of unstructured text.

Signed-off-by: Brian Norris <briannorris@chromium.org>
---
 drivers/net/wireless/marvell/mwifiex/cfg80211.c | 11 ++++-------
 1 file changed, 4 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-)

diff --git a/drivers/net/wireless/marvell/mwifiex/cfg80211.c b/drivers/net/wireless/marvell/mwifiex/cfg80211.c
index a2ed268ce0da..0961f4a5e415 100644
--- a/drivers/net/wireless/marvell/mwifiex/cfg80211.c
+++ b/drivers/net/wireless/marvell/mwifiex/cfg80211.c
@@ -2300,8 +2300,7 @@ mwifiex_cfg80211_assoc(struct mwifiex_private *priv, size_t ssid_len,
 			is_scanning_required = 1;
 		} else {
 			mwifiex_dbg(priv->adapter, MSG,
-				    "info: trying to associate to '%.*s' bssid %pM\n",
-				    req_ssid.ssid_len, (char *)req_ssid.ssid,
+				    "info: trying to associate to bssid %pM\n",
 				    bss->bssid);
 			memcpy(&priv->cfg_bssid, bss->bssid, ETH_ALEN);
 			break;
@@ -2378,8 +2377,7 @@ mwifiex_cfg80211_connect(struct wiphy *wiphy, struct net_device *dev,
 	}
 
 	mwifiex_dbg(adapter, INFO,
-		    "info: Trying to associate to %.*s and bssid %pM\n",
-		    (int)sme->ssid_len, (char *)sme->ssid, sme->bssid);
+		    "info: Trying to associate to bssid %pM\n", sme->bssid);
 
 	if (!mwifiex_stop_bg_scan(priv))
 		cfg80211_sched_scan_stopped_locked(priv->wdev.wiphy, 0);
@@ -2512,9 +2510,8 @@ mwifiex_cfg80211_join_ibss(struct wiphy *wiphy, struct net_device *dev,
 		goto done;
 	}
 
-	mwifiex_dbg(priv->adapter, MSG,
-		    "info: trying to join to %.*s and bssid %pM\n",
-		    params->ssid_len, (char *)params->ssid, params->bssid);
+	mwifiex_dbg(priv->adapter, MSG, "info: trying to join to bssid %pM\n",
+		    params->bssid);
 
 	mwifiex_set_ibss_params(priv, params);
 
-- 
2.30.0.617.g56c4b15f3c-goog

Re: [PATCH] mwifiex: don't print SSID to logs

[Kalle Valo]

Brian Norris <briannorris@chromium.org> wrote:

> There are a few reasons not to dump SSIDs as-is in kernel logs:
> 
> 1) they're not guaranteed to be any particular text encoding (UTF-8,
>    ASCII, ...) in general
> 2) it's somewhat redundant; the BSSID should be enough to uniquely
>    identify the AP/STA to which we're connecting
> 3) BSSIDs have an easily-recognized format, whereas SSIDs do not (they
>    are free-form)
> 4) other common drivers (e.g., everything based on mac80211) get along
>    just fine by only including BSSIDs when logging state transitions
> 
> Additional notes on reason #3: this is important for the
> privacy-conscious, especially when providing tools that convey
> kernel logs on behalf of a user -- e.g., when reporting bugs. So for
> example, it's easy to automatically filter logs for MAC addresses, but
> it's much harder to filter SSIDs out of unstructured text.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Brian Norris <briannorris@chromium.org>

Patch applied to wireless-drivers-next.git, thanks.

d23a96220353 mwifiex: don't print SSID to logs

-- 
https://patchwork.kernel.org/project/linux-wireless/patch/20210225024454.4106485-1-briannorris@chromium.org/

https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/developers/documentation/submittingpatches