[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Hostname lookups again.

[Vasco Alexandre Da Silva Costa <vasc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 19 Sep 2000, Jarda Benkovsky wrote:

> Gaute B Strokkenes wrote:
> > Actually checking the length field of the look-up (when we've already
> > ascertained that it's AF_INET) might be a bit anal, but why not.
> 
> Definitely not too anal! You should check it to prevent remote exploits

Read my lips :-)

gethostbyname() is a libc call to resolver, which calls DNS.  If the
resolver and libc don't catch the bug.  Then i'm sorry.  But if we were to
painstakingly test for each bug/security problem in libc then you'd have
to test *everything*.  Why not parse sprintf()'s output string to check
some malicious exploit is making you not output numbers correctly, etc.
Happy?  :-)

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Vasco Alexandre da Silva Costa @ Instituto Superior Tecnico, Lisboa