Remember, kmalloc() can return NUL

Christopher Peterson (cpeterso@cs.washington.edu)
Sun, 4 Jul 1999 15:07:29 -0700

Searching through the Linux 2.2.10 source tree, I have found 217 possibly
crash-worthy bugs. These are places where a developer has called a function
that can return NULL, but has forgotten to check for a NULL return value.
For example, many developers call kmalloc() or __get_free_pages() without
checking for NULL, assuming these functions will always succeed. Although
these functions rarely return NULL, this is still a real possibility for a
heavily stressed Linux server. If we want Linux to become even more
reliable, we need to stamp out bugs in every corner of the source code.

I don't have the copious time necessary to track down the owners for all 217
bugs, so I'm hoping the friendly, distributed Linux community can help track
down all the proper owners! I'll remove bugs from my posted bug list when
they are fixed in future Linux patches. Rather than flooding the
linux-kernel list with a huge email, I've posted the list of bugs at:

http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/cpeterso/linuxbugs.txt

bon appetite!
:-D

chris

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