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vboxsf: Add __nonstring annotations for unterminated strings

PATCH Applied Kees Cook 3 participants 3 messages Mar 10, 2025 – Mar 11, 2025

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Kees Cook

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#0 lore raw

PATCH 1/1 vboxsf: Add __nonstring annotations for unterminated strings

When a character array without a terminating NUL character has a static initializer, GCC 15's -Wunterminated-string-initialization will only warn if the array lacks the "nonstring" attribute[1]. Mark the arrays with __nonstring to and correctly identify the char array as "not a C string" and thereby eliminate the warning.

This effectively reverts the change in 4e7487245abc ("vboxsf: fix building with GCC 15"), to add the annotation that has other uses (i.e. warning if the string is ever used with C string APIs).

---
 fs/vboxsf/super.c | 3 +--
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 2 deletions(-)
fs/vboxsf/super.c +1 -2
index 1d94bb784108..0bc96ab6580b 100644
@@ -21,8 +21,7 @@
 
 #define VBOXSF_SUPER_MAGIC 0x786f4256 /* 'VBox' little endian */
 
-static const unsigned char VBSF_MOUNT_SIGNATURE[4] = { '\000', '\377', '\376',
-						       '\375' };
+static const unsigned char VBSF_MOUNT_SIGNATURE[4] __nonstring = "\000\377\376\375";
 
 static int follow_symlinks;
 module_param(follow_symlinks, int, 0444);
Signature · 1 line
2.34.1
Reviewed-by on v1 1/1
#1 lore raw

Hi,

Quoted 10 lines · Kees Cook

When a character array without a terminating NUL character has a static initializer, GCC 15's -Wunterminated-string-initialization will only warn if the array lacks the "nonstring" attribute[1]. Mark the arrays with __nonstring to and correctly identify the char array as "not a C string" and thereby eliminate the warning.

This effectively reverts the change in 4e7487245abc ("vboxsf: fix building with GCC 15"), to add the annotation that has other uses (i.e. warning if the string is ever used with C string APIs).

Quoted 6 lines

Thanks, patch looks good to me:

Regards,

Hans

Quoted 18 lines
---
 fs/vboxsf/super.c | 3 +--
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 2 deletions(-)
fs/vboxsf/super.c +1 -2
index 1d94bb784108..0bc96ab6580b 100644
@@ -21,8 +21,7 @@
 
 #define VBOXSF_SUPER_MAGIC 0x786f4256 /* 'VBox' little endian */
 
-static const unsigned char VBSF_MOUNT_SIGNATURE[4] = { '\000', '\377', '\376',
-						       '\375' };
+static const unsigned char VBSF_MOUNT_SIGNATURE[4] __nonstring = "\000\377\376\375";
 
 static int follow_symlinks;
 module_param(follow_symlinks, int, 0444);
maintainer Applied
#2 lore raw
In reply to Kees Cook
Quoted 11 lines · Kees Cook

When a character array without a terminating NUL character has a static initializer, GCC 15's -Wunterminated-string-initialization will only warn if the array lacks the "nonstring" attribute[1]. Mark the arrays with __nonstring to and correctly identify the char array as "not a C string" and thereby eliminate the warning.

This effectively reverts the change in 4e7487245abc ("vboxsf: fix building with GCC 15"), to add the annotation that has other uses (i.e. warning if the string is ever used with C string APIs).

[...]

Applied to the vfs.fixes branch of the vfs/vfs.git tree. Patches in the vfs.fixes branch should appear in linux-next soon.

Please report any outstanding bugs that were missed during review in a new review to the original patch series allowing us to drop it.

It's encouraged to provide Acked-bys and Reviewed-bys even though the patch has now been applied. If possible patch trailers will be updated.

Note that commit hashes shown below are subject to change due to rebase, trailer updates or similar. If in doubt, please check the listed branch.

tree:   https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/vfs/vfs.git
branch: vfs.fixes

[1/1] vboxsf: Add __nonstring annotations for unterminated strings

      https://git.kernel.org/vfs/vfs/c/986a6f5eacb9