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crypto: essiv - Replace memcpy() + NUL-termination with strscpy()

PATCH In review Thorsten Blum 3 participants 4 messages Mar 16, 2025 – Mar 23, 2025 Crypto API

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PATCH 1/1 crypto: essiv - Replace memcpy() + NUL-termination with strscpy()

Use strscpy() to copy the NUL-terminated string 'p' to the destination buffer instead of using memcpy() followed by a manual NUL-termination.

No functional changes intended.

---
 crypto/essiv.c | 3 +--
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 2 deletions(-)
crypto/essiv.c +1 -2
index 1c00c3324058..ec0ec8992c2d 100644
@@ -405,8 +405,7 @@ static bool parse_cipher_name(char *essiv_cipher_name, const char *cra_name)
 	if (len >= CRYPTO_MAX_ALG_NAME)
 		return false;
 
-	memcpy(essiv_cipher_name, p, len);
-	essiv_cipher_name[len] = '\0';
+	strscpy(essiv_cipher_name, p, len + 1);
 	return true;
 }
 
Signature · 1 line
2.48.1
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#1 lore raw
Quoted 9 lines · Thorsten Blum

Use strscpy() to copy the NUL-terminated string 'p' to the destination buffer instead of using memcpy() followed by a manual NUL-termination.

No functional changes intended.

---
 crypto/essiv.c | 3 +--
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 2 deletions(-)

Patch applied. Thanks.

Signature · 3 lines
Email: Herbert Xu <[email protected]>
Home Page: http://gondor.apana.org.au/~herbert/
PGP Key: http://gondor.apana.org.au/~herbert/pubkey.txt
#2 lore raw
In reply to Thorsten Blum
Quoted 15 lines · On Sun, 16 Mar 2025 22:15:04 +0100 Thorsten Blum <[email protected]>…

Use strscpy() to copy the NUL-terminated string 'p' to the destination buffer instead of using memcpy() followed by a manual NUL-termination.

No functional changes intended.

---
 crypto/essiv.c | 3 +--
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 2 deletions(-)
crypto/essiv.c +0 -0
index 1c00c3324058..ec0ec8992c2d 100644

crypto/essiv.c static bool parse_cipher_name(char *essiv_cipher_name, const char *cra_name) · line 408

Quoted 6 lines
crypto/essiv.c +1 -2
@@ -405,8 +405,7 @@ static bool parse_cipher_name(char *essiv_cipher_name, const char *cra_name)
 	if (len >= CRYPTO_MAX_ALG_NAME)
 		return false;
 
-	memcpy(essiv_cipher_name, p, len);
-	essiv_cipher_name[len] = '\0';
+	strscpy(essiv_cipher_name, p, len + 1);

That is just 'so wrong'.
The 'len' argument to strscpy() is supposed to be the length of the buffer (in order to avoid overflow) not the number of characters.

In this case the bound check is before the copy (and the buffer assumed to be the right size!)
So memcpy() + terminate is exactly correct.

The warning gcc emits for strncpy() when the length depends on the source string is equally applicable to strscpy().

David

Quoted 3 lines
crypto/essiv.c +0 -0
 	return true;
 }
 
#3 lore raw

Hi David,

Quoted 5 lines · David Laight
Quoted 3 lines · On Sun, 16 Mar 2025 22:15:04 +0100 Thorsten Blum wrote:

Use strscpy() to copy the NUL-terminated string 'p' to the destination buffer instead of using memcpy() followed by a manual NUL-termination.

Quoted 7 lines
Quoted 4 lines

No functional changes intended.

---

The 'len' argument to strscpy() is supposed to be the length of the buffer (in order to avoid overflow) not the number of characters.

Not necessarily, see linux/string.h:

/**
* strscpy - Copy a C-string into a sized buffer
* ...
* The size argument @... is only required when @dst is not an array, or
* when the copy needs to be smaller than sizeof(@dst).
* ...
*/

Quoted 3 lines

In this case the bound check is before the copy (and the buffer assumed to be the right size!)
So memcpy() + terminate is exactly correct.

Yes, this is simply a refactoring, there's nothing wrong with memcpy() followed by a manual NUL-termination.

However, strscpy() is shorter and semantically better imo because we're copying C-strings and not just raw bytes. strscpy() also has additional compile-time checks regarding C-strings that memcpy() doesn't.

Thanks,
Thorsten