Linux "NULL pointer dereferece" in the News...

[Rahul Sundaram]

On 07/19/2009 11:09 PM, Tom Horsley wrote:
>> http://blog.namei.org/2009/07/18/a-brief-note-on-the-2630-kernel-null-pointer-vulnerability/
> 
> Why on earth would I need an option named -fno-delete-null-pointer-checks?
> If there is a null pointer check in the source code, then it is there for
> a reason (maybe a bad reason, maybe a good one, but the compiler can't possibly
> know which kind :-). There has got to be a fundamental compiler bug here,
> and it is absurd to go adding compiler options that say "Oh, by the way,
> please don't run into this particular bug."
> 
> What next? Will I need to compile with the options
> 
> --do-not-alter-meaning-of-line-1 --do-not-alter-meaning-of-line-2 ... ?

It is not so simple. This is not a compiler bug. I suggest you read
through http://lwn.net/Articles/341773/rss to understand why.

Rahul