[TUHS] The evolution of Unix facilities and architecture

[Random832]

On Fri, May 12, 2017, at 19:38, Dave Horsfall wrote:
> On Fri, 12 May 2017, Noel Chiappa wrote:
> 
> > So when we got back from dinner, I looked at the source to our system to see
> > if I was right, and.... it had already been fixed! Here's the code:
> > 
> > 	if (xp->x_count!=1 || xp->x_iptr->i_mode&ISVTX)
> > 		goto error;
> 
> Err, isn't that the sticky bit, not the setuid bit?

The sticky bit makes it keep the image in memory when there are no
processes using it. I assume x_count is determining whether there are
processes using it. So, taken together, these checks are "is there or
might there be in the future a process, other than the one being
debugged, using this exact copy of the image rather than loading it from
the disk".

The next line is "xp->x_iptr->i_flag &= ~ITEXT", which I assume prevents
the image from being reused for other processes started while this one
is running.

I am looking at 7th edition in the UnixTree site, the whole fix is:

		/*
		 * If text, must assure exclusive use
		 */
		if (xp = u.u_procp->p_textp) {
			if (xp->x_count!=1 || xp->x_iptr->i_mode&ISVTX)
				goto error;
			xp->x_iptr->i_flag &= ~ITEXT;
		}

The equivalent section to the one this appears in in 6th edition doesn't
have the fix, and the comment claims, doesn't work at all:

	/* write user I (for now, always an error) */
	case 4:
		if (suiword(ipc.ip_addr, 0) < 0)
			goto error;
		suiword(ipc.ip_addr, ipc.ip_data);
		break;

This is clearly PDP-11 specific, maybe a similar bug reappeared with
demand-paged virtual memory.