Re: getline & getline_safe

[Paul Edwards]

"Derek Robert Price" <derek@ximbiot.com> wrote in message 
news:mailman.56.1058280232.8231.bug-cvs@gnu.org...
> Anyhow, I noticed that ccvs/src/server.c is calling a getline_safe()
> function that is basically getline() with a maximum read limit.  The CVS
> log of ccvs/src/server.c & ccvs/src/getline.c reports that
> getline_safe() was added by Karl Fogel in July of 2000 and called in
> order to avoid a denial of service attack during the authentication
> phase where an attacker sends long authentication strings without
> newlines, I assume to fill up memory and slow things down or halt them.
> I couldn't find anything in the relevant mail archives on the subject.
>
> My question is, is this really necessary?  Don't most modern operating
> systems allow ulimit to limit process size?

I think it is usual for a program to have processing restrictions,
although I would have made it based on a CVS-controlled define,
like CVS_STR_LIMIT, rather than PATH_MAX, which could
potentially be 8, while userid may be 30.

BFN.  Paul.