From: torvalds@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Linus Torvalds) Subject: Re: ANNOUNCE: 0.98.pl2 is out Date: 18 Oct 1992 22:42:02 GMT
In article <1992Oct18.144546.28249@klaava.Helsinki.FI> I wrote:
> [ deleted ]
>
> - various minor mm fixes by me: trapping kernel NULL dereferences,
...
Oh, boy. Talk about a feature that proved itself. I have never gotten
so many bug-reports so fast: it seems there were quite a few
NULL-pointer problems in the code I hadn't been able to test. Thus
0.98.2 isn't actually very useable unless you have a system very close
to my setup - I don't recommend the faint-of-hearted to try it out.
I guess I should be happy the new feature found problems in the kernel
sources, but I could well have lived with a couple less problems. Main
problem areas seem to be:
- the vhangup() system call - used by newer login-binaries, and
resulting in login getting killed.
- some scsi driver problems (but they should be fixed by the patch eric
already sent out)
- tcp/ip problems - at least three different places where NULL gets
dereferenced (and one is particularly ugly: it does test for NULL,
but does so *after* dereferencing it...)
The vhangup() problem was easy to correct (and excusable: it broke at
least partly due to the new dynamic tty-routines). I'll make some
preliminary testing-patches available that fix that problem, and
includes the scsi fixes.
But the tcp/ip code is a bit worse: I fixed two of the known problems,
but I'd rather use patches from the persons who wrote the code
originally, as there are some other problems in there.. And I can't be
sure I find them all anyway, as I'll never see the problems first-hand.
Just wanted to warn everybody about this aspect of pl2 - the
NULL-pointer finding code is working a bit too well for my taste. I had
hoped there wouldn't be quite this many NULL pointer problems, but at
least they'll be found this way.
Linus