Re: [Re: Linux 2.6.26-rc2] Write protect on on

[Linus Torvalds]

On Mon, 19 May 2008, Boaz Harrosh wrote:

> Alan Stern wrote:
> > 
> > Yes, it never worked properly.  But now it fails in a bad way whereas 
> > before it failed in a benign way.
> 
> You do realize that, that was pure lock to have a zero'ed buffer.

Umm. Maybe it SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN!

The thing is, if we can get partial results back, we really *should* 
either error out, or we should have at least cleared the buffer (either 
beforehand or when seeing the partial result). Returning a buffer with the 
old random contents is a bug.

And if clearing the buffer not only avoids any security holes and possible 
undefined behavior, but _also_ ends up fixing the write protect sense 
issue, all the better!

		Linus
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