Re: [PATCH] Documentation: Fix incorrect paths/magic in magic numbers rst
From: Nir Lichtman
Date: Thu Nov 07 2024 - 16:09:58 EST
On Mon, Nov 04, 2024 at 01:10:56PM -0700, Jonathan Corbet wrote:
> Nir Lichtman <nir@xxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
> >
> > Agreed, it feels pretty much like abandoned book keeping that gives minimal
> > value since the chance of magics colliding is slim, but I think the general tip
> > before the table of magics is pretty good.
> >
> > What is your opinion about integrating the tip in a different page and deleting
> > this page entirely?
>
> Well, that's part of my reasoning, actually. I assume you're talking
> about this:
>
> > It is a **very** good idea to protect kernel data structures with magic
> > numbers. This allows you to check at run time whether (a) a structure
> > has been clobbered, or (b) you've passed the wrong structure to a
> > routine.
>
> The thing is, that's really not a guideline that anybody has followed
> for many years. I dug into this a while back:
>
> https://lwn.net/Articles/915163/
Nice, interesting article and history
>
> There was a series to remove all of this cruft a couple of years ago
> that the author eventually gave up on:
>
> https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/cover.1668128257.git.nabijaczleweli@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/
>
> Honestly, I think the best thing to do is to simply remove the file.
Agreed, looks like he got some pushback from removing the magics from
the source itself, but I don't think that should stop from removing this doc
Thanks,
Nir