Re: [PATCH 17/21] audit: Use timespec64 to represent audit timestamps

[Steve Grubb]

On Thursday, June 09, 2016 07:59:43 PM Richard Guy Briggs wrote:
> On 16/06/09, Steve Grubb wrote:
> > On Wednesday, June 08, 2016 10:05:01 PM Deepa Dinamani wrote:
> > > struct timespec is not y2038 safe.
> > > Audit timestamps are recorded in string format into
> > > an audit buffer for a given context.
> > > These mark the entry timestamps for the syscalls.
> > > Use y2038 safe struct timespec64 to represent the times.
> > > The log strings can handle this transition as strings can
> > > hold upto 1024 characters.
> > 
> > Have you tested this with ausearch or any audit utilities? As an aside, a
> > time stamp that is up to 1024 characters long is terribly wasteful
> > considering how many events we get.
> 
> Steve,
> 
> I don't expect the size of the time stamp text to change since the
> format isn't being changed and I don't expect the date stamp text length
> to change until Y10K, but you never know what will happen in 8
> millenia...  (Who knows, maybe that damn Linux server in my basement
> will still be running then...)
> 
> Isn't the maximum message length MAX_AUDIT_MESSAGE_LENGTH (8970 octets)?

Bytes, yes. But I was thinking that if its going to get big we should consider 
switching from a base 10 representation to base 16. That would give us back a 
few bytes. We discuss this on the linux-audit list rather than the main list.

-Steve