Re: [PATCH] scsi: target: replace deprecated strncpy with strscpy

[Kees Cook]

On Mon, Mar 18, 2024 at 09:32:01PM +0000, Justin Stitt wrote:
> strncpy() is deprecated for use on NUL-terminated destination strings
> [1] and as such we should prefer more robust and less ambiguous string
> interfaces.
> 
> We expect db_root and db_root_stage to be NUL-terminated based on its
> immediate use with pr_debug which expects a C-string argument (%s).
> Moreover, it seems NUL-padding is not required.
> 
> Considering the above, a suitable replacement is `strscpy` [2] due to
> the fact that it guarantees NUL-termination on the destination buffer
> without unnecessarily NUL-padding.
> 
> Additionally, we should also change snprintf() to scnprintf().
> `read_bytes` may be improperly assigned as snprintf() does NOT return
> the number of bytes written into the destination buffer, rather it
> returns the number of bytes that COULD have been written to that buffer
> if it had ample space. Conversely, scnprintf() returns the actual number
> of bytes written into the destination buffer (except the NUL-byte). This
> essentially means the ``if (!read_bytes)`` was probably never a possible
> branch.
> 
> After these changes, this code is more self-describing since it uses
> string APIs that more accurately match the desired behavior.
> 
> Link: https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/process/deprecated.html#strncpy-on-nul-terminated-strings [1]
> Link: https://manpages.debian.org/testing/linux-manual-4.8/strscpy.9.en.html [2]
> Link: https://github.com/KSPP/linux/issues/90
> Cc: linux-hardening@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Signed-off-by: Justin Stitt <justinstitt@xxxxxxxxxx>

Good catch on "read_bytes"!

Reviewed-by: Kees Cook <keescook@xxxxxxxxxxxx>

-- 
Kees Cook