[TUHS] Bugs in V6 'dcheck'

[Tim Newsham]

There are bugs to be found, and it can be a fun hunt
(though not too much of a challenge).  Here are some
more (security related, as thats my inclination):

  http://marc.info/?l=bugtraq&m=108627540130457&w=2
  http://minnie.tuhs.org/pipermail/unix-jun72/2008-May/000126.html
  http://minnie.tuhs.org/pipermail/unix-jun72/2008-May/000250.html

Tim


On Sat, May 31, 2014 at 3:15 AM, Noel Chiappa <jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu> wrote:
> So it turns out the 'dcheck' distributed with V6 has two (well, three, but
> the third one was only a potential problem for me) bugs it.
>
>
> The first was a fence-post error on a table clearing operation; it could
> cause the entry for the last inode of the disk in the constructed table of
> directory entry counts to start with a non-zero count when a second disk was
> scanned. However, it was only triggered in very specific circumstances:
>
> - A larger disk was listed before a smaller one (either in the command line,
>     or compiled in)
> - The inode on the larger disk corresponding to the last inode on the smaller
>     one was in use
>
> I can understand how they never ran across this one.
>
>
> The other one, however, which was an un-initalized variable, should have
> bitten them anytime they had more than one disk listed! It caused the
> constructed table of directory entry counts to be partially or wholly
> (depending on the size of the two disks) blank in all disks after the first
> one, causing numerous (bogus) error reports.
>
> (It was also amusing to find an un-used procedure in the source; it looks
> like dcheck was written starting with the code for 'icheck' - which explains
> the second bug; since the logic in icheck is subtly different, that variable
> _is_ set properly in icheck.)
>
> How this bug never bit them I cannot understand - unless they saw it, and
> couldn't be bothered to find and fix it!
>
> To me, it's completely amazing to find such a serious bug in such a critical
> piece of widely-distributd code! A lesson for archaeologists...
>
>
> Anyway, a fixed version is here:
>
>   http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/tech/unix/ucmd/dcheck.c
>
> if anyone cares/needs it.
>
>         Noel
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-- 
Tim Newsham | www.thenewsh.com/~newsham | @newshtwit | thenewsh.blogspot.com