On Friday, 30 November 2018 15:00:02 CET Wen Yang wrote:
This patch fixes a possible null pointer dereference in batadv_gw_election, detected by the semantic patch deref_null.cocci, with the following warning:
./net/batman-adv/gateway_client.c:289:15-24: ERROR: next_gw is NULL but dereferenced. ./net/batman-adv/gateway_client.c:290:15-29: ERROR: next_gw is NULL but dereferenced. ./net/batman-adv/gateway_client.c:291:15-29: ERROR: next_gw is NULL but dereferenced. ./net/batman-adv/gateway_client.c:292:15-27: ERROR: next_gw is NULL but dereferenced. ./net/batman-adv/gateway_client.c:293:15-27: ERROR: next_gw is NULL but dereferenced.
This patch is seems to be nonsensical. next_gw cannot be NULL at this point (let us call this location in the code "4."). Let us go through the code
// 1. when both are NULL then it would jump out of the the function. if (curr_gw == next_gw) goto out;
[...]
if (curr_gw && !next_gw) { [...] // 2. this handles the only valid case when next_gw is NULL } else if (!curr_gw && next_gw) { // 3. here we know that next_gw is not NULL and curr_gw is NULL // we can therefore infer that [...] } else { // 4. here you try to add an ugly patch to handle a non-existing // next_gw == NULL case [...] }
Let us go through all possible combinations:
curr_gw next_gw I 0 0 II x 0 III 0 y IV x y
For I: we would leave the function even at 1. and never reach 4. For II: would be handled by 2. and thus never reach 4. For III: would be handled by 3. and thus never reach 4. For IV: This can be handled by 1. (when x == y). Or otherwise it would be handled by 4. but is not the next_gw == NULL case.
Please correct me (in case I missed something) but it looks to me that this patch should be rejected.
Kind regards, Sven