Re: [patch] mtd: maps: sa1100-flash: potential NULL dereference

From: Greg Kroah-Hartman
Date: Fri Jul 15 2016 - 20:48:28 EST


On Fri, Jul 15, 2016 at 05:32:09PM -0700, Brian Norris wrote:
> + stable
>
> Hi Dan,
>
> Patch looks good, but one question.
>
> On Fri, Jul 15, 2016 at 02:06:30PM +0300, Dan Carpenter wrote:
> > We check for NULL but then dereference "info->mtd" on the next line.
> >
> > Fixes: 72169755cf36 ('mtd: maps: sa1100-flash: show parent device in sysfs')
>
> What am I supposed to do about tags like this? It appears that the
> -stable folks have started taking patches with a 'Fixes' tag alone [0],
> even though that's not mentioned in [1]. I ask because I strongly
> suspect this patch doesn't fit the rules in [1] -- it quite likely has
> only been compile tested; and it qualifies quite well as violating
> bullet 4:
>
> """
> - It must fix a real bug that bothers people (not a, "This could be a
> problem..." type thing).
> """
>
> So, I'd like to keep the tag, but I'd like to avoid having to NAK it in
> the stable review process. (And really, I often don't care enough to
> even do that. I believe there's a very low chance that something like
> this would cause additional problems more than the original bug.)

Only sometimes will I pick up something that only has a fixes: tag in
it, not all the time, I try to review the patch to see if it does match
the rules or not.

But, fixing an oops is a good thing, I'm sure you can figure out how to
trigger it otherwise you would not be taking such a patch as it would be
not be needed :)

thanks,

greg k-h