Subject: Re: CVS commit: src/usr.sbin/rtsold
To: Perry E. Metzger <perry@piermont.com>
From: Nathan J. Williams <nathanw@wasabisystems.com>
List: source-changes
Date: 01/03/2004 12:39:17
"Perry E. Metzger" <perry@piermont.com> writes:

> >    > Also, pidfile handles cleanup automatically.
> >    
> >    	atexit() in NetBSD can be very unsafe at this moment - see
> >    	http://www.openbsd.org/papers/pacsec03/e/index.html (page 12)
> >    	so i don't like it be used.
> 
> Could we fix atexit and then add back the pidfile() functionality?

I think that the judgement that atexit is "very dangerous" is
overblown, having looked at the description of the problem. It's
essentially complaining that there's a function pointer in libc that's
used by all programs, so a vulnerability is introduced once an
attacker has gained the ability to overwrite arbitrary locations in
memory.

This is well beyond even prudent belt-and-suspenders paranoia, I
think.

        - Nathan