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ALSA: xen-front: refactor deprecated strncpy
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`strncpy` is deprecated for use on NUL-terminated destination strings [1].

A suitable replacement is `strscpy` [2] due to the fact that it
guarantees NUL-termination on its destination buffer argument which is
_not_ always the case for `strncpy`!

It should be noted that, in this case, the destination buffer has a
length strictly greater than the source string. Moreover, the source
string is NUL-terminated (and so is the destination) which means there
was no real bug happening here. Nonetheless, this patch would get us one
step closer to eliminating the `strncpy` API in the kernel, as its use
is too ambiguous. We need to favor less ambiguous replacements such as:
strscpy, strscpy_pad, strtomem and strtomem_pad (amongst others).

Technically, my patch yields subtly different behavior. The original
implementation with `strncpy` would fill the entire destination buffer
with null bytes [3] while `strscpy` will leave the junk, uninitialized
bytes trailing after the _mandatory_ NUL-termination. So, if somehow
`pcm->name` or `card->driver/shortname/longname` require this
NUL-padding behavior then `strscpy_pad` should be used. My
interpretation, though, is that the aforementioned fields are just fine
as NUL-terminated strings. Please correct my assumptions if needed and
I'll send in a v2.

[1]: www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/process/deprecated.html#strncpy-on-nul-terminated-strings
[2]: manpages.debian.org/testing/linux-manual-4.8/strscpy.9.en.html
[3]: https://linux.die.net/man/3/strncpy

Link: KSPP#90
Signed-off-by: Justin Stitt <[email protected]>
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JustinStitt authored and intel-lab-lkp committed Jul 27, 2023
1 parent 57012c5 commit 4bdb185
Showing 1 changed file with 4 additions and 4 deletions.
8 changes: 4 additions & 4 deletions sound/xen/xen_snd_front_alsa.c
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -783,7 +783,7 @@ static int new_pcm_instance(struct xen_snd_front_card_info *card_info,
pcm->info_flags = 0;
/* we want to handle all PCM operations in non-atomic context */
pcm->nonatomic = true;
strncpy(pcm->name, "Virtual card PCM", sizeof(pcm->name));
strscpy(pcm->name, "Virtual card PCM", sizeof(pcm->name));

if (instance_cfg->num_streams_pb)
snd_pcm_set_ops(pcm, SNDRV_PCM_STREAM_PLAYBACK,
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -835,9 +835,9 @@ int xen_snd_front_alsa_init(struct xen_snd_front_info *front_info)
goto fail;
}

strncpy(card->driver, XENSND_DRIVER_NAME, sizeof(card->driver));
strncpy(card->shortname, cfg->name_short, sizeof(card->shortname));
strncpy(card->longname, cfg->name_long, sizeof(card->longname));
strscpy(card->driver, XENSND_DRIVER_NAME, sizeof(card->driver));
strscpy(card->shortname, cfg->name_short, sizeof(card->shortname));
strscpy(card->longname, cfg->name_long, sizeof(card->longname));

ret = snd_card_register(card);
if (ret < 0)
Expand Down

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