----- Original Message -----
 (2012/03/22 4:18), Dave Anderson wrote:
 > 
 > 
 > ----- Original Message -----
 >>
 >>
 >> ----- Original Message -----
 >>> Hi Dave,
 >>>
 >>> I met stack smashing detection by glibc at read_string()
 >>> then this patch is proposal.
 >>>
 >>> *** stack smashing detected ***: crash terminated
 >>> ======= Backtrace: =========
 >>> /lib/libc.so.6(__fortify_fail+0x4c)[0xfe12380]
 >>> /lib/libc.so.6(__fortify_fail+0x0)[0xfe12334]
 >>> ./crash[0x10147bf0]
 >>> ./crash(display_sys_stats+0xcf8)[0x1011cd74]
 >>> ./crash(main_loop+0x300)[0x10068960]
 >>> ./crash(current_interp_command_loop+0x48)[0x1021ac2c]
 >>> ./crash[0x1021bcc4]
 >>> ./crash(catch_errors+0x84)[0x1021a0c4]
 >>> ./crash[0x1021d37c]
 >>> ./crash(catch_errors+0x84)[0x1021a0c4]
 >>> ./crash(gdb_main+0x58)[0x1021d3e8]
 >>> ./crash(gdb_main_entry+0x6c)[0x1021d490]
 >>> ./crash(gdb_main_loop+0x3b4)[0x10130e5c]
 >>> ./crash(main+0x38c0)[0x10068650]
 >>> /lib/libc.so.6(+0x1f568)[0xfd36568]
 >>> /lib/libc.so.6(+0x1f728)[0xfd36728]
 >>>
 >>> An failed vmalloc() including non terminated with NULLCHAR is
 >>> root cause,
 >>> but I think it is better to keep other utilities without killed.
 >>
 >> This patch changes the return value of read_string() in a
 >> situation where the requested number of bytes does not include
 >> a NULL terminator.  Note that the function is described like
 >> this:
 >>
 >>   /*
 >>    *  Try to read a string of non-NULL characters from a memory
 >>    location,
 >>    *  returning the number of characters read.
 >>    */
 >>   int
 >>   read_string(ulong kvaddr, char *buf, int maxlen)
 >>   {
 >>
 >> The "maxlen" parameter is there to handle case where the requested
 >> memory read does not contain a NULL character.  And there may be
 >> other callers that use the function to read until a NULL *or* until
 >> the maxlen is reached.
 >>
 >> That being said, there may be a bug in there somewhere, or it
 >> could be written differently, but I don't want to change the
 >> function's behavior (return value).
 >>
 >> You mention:
 >>
 >>> an failed vmalloc() including non terminated with NULLCHAR
 >>> is the root cause".
 >>
 >> Can you elaborate on what you mean by that?  I want to be able
 >> to reproduce this, but I cannot.
 > 
 > Hi Toshi,
 > 
 > I'm still not clear on how you were able to make this happen in
 > the "normal" course of events, but I was able to kludge up a test
 > with more than a page-size of non-NULL characters, and did manage
 > to force a segmentation violation.
 
 Hi Dave,
 
 Thanks for your support and I'm sorry that my previous analysis was
 very poor.
 
 > There's really no reason for read_string() to buffer the data given
 > that it has aways zeroed out the user buffer first.  And there's also
 > no reason for it to break up the request into per-page segments.
 
 Yes, you're right and I've been mistaken about root cause.
 (By skipping read_string(), true root cause was also skipped...)
 
 I added debug messages in ppc_processor_speed() and found out
 a direct tie to "*** stack smashing detected ***".
 It's a ppc specific problem, and fixed with attached patch.
 
 I'm not sure about strcasecmp() implementation or specification
 but if "buflen - 1" size characters are passed,
 looked to be detected as stack corruption.
 
 Thanks a lots for your support,
 Toshi 
Queued for crash-6.0.5.
Thanks,
  Dave