| Summary: | clarify malloc error message to avoid confusion | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Product: | glibc | Reporter: | Kees Cook <kees> |
| Component: | libc | Assignee: | Dmitry V. Levin <ldv> |
| Status: | RESOLVED FIXED | ||
| Severity: | normal | CC: | glibc-bugs |
| Priority: | P2 | Flags: | fweimer:
security-
|
| Version: | 2.11 | ||
| Target Milestone: | --- | ||
| Host: | Target: | ||
| Build: | Last reconfirmed: | ||
| Attachments: |
replaces "glibc detected" with "malloc error"
more detailed sentence to replace just "glibc detected" |
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Created attachment 4189 [details]
replaces "glibc detected" with "malloc error"
Nonsense, the message is clear. Can you please reconsider? I'm getting quite a few false bugrepors against glibc about "glibc bug" with this message; people are indeed getting confused by thinking this is some kind of internal error, IMHO. Changing to "malloc error" would help a lot. malloc error would be far more confusing, people would think this is an error in the malloc implementation. Created attachment 4194 [details]
more detailed sentence to replace just "glibc detected"
In this case, how about this patch, which leaves no run for misunderstanding:
*** glibc has detected an error in %s: %s: 0x%s ***
Perhaps you should educate your users. There is no problem. Well, some people will make it as far as opening bugs against glibc: http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=1483 I agree that education would be helpful -- making it clear in the error message itself that the problem is not with glibc. I think it would keep bugs like the above URL out of the tracker here, or in distro bug trackers. (In reply to comment #7) > Well, some people will make it as far as opening bugs against glibc: > http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=1483 > > I agree that education would be helpful -- making it clear in the error message > itself that the problem is not with glibc. I think it would keep bugs like the > above URL out of the tracker here, or in distro bug trackers. I agree. |
The current malloc error message template is "*** glibc detected *** [argv0]: [error]: [addr] ***". Due to the second "***", the whole message is frequently parsed as two statements, leading to confusion for some people. The phrase "glibc detected" is misleading, since it was not glibc that was detected but rather the error itself. glibc did the detecting. ("[I have] detected glibc" vs "glibc detected [an error]".) I would suggest one of: - dropping the middle ***'s - changing the "glibc detected" string to "malloc error" - dropping the middle ***'s and changing the "glibc detected" string to "glibc has detected"