< Features
MEMSTOMP
Summary
Include the MEMSTOMP DSOs in Fedora 19
Owner
- Name: Jeff Law
- Email: law@redhat.com
Current status
- Targeted release: Releases/19
- Last updated: 2013-01-22
- Percentage of completion: 50%
Detailed Description
MEMSTOMP is a DSO which can be preloaded by an application to detect calls to library routines with overlapping memory arguments. Specifically MEMSTOMP will detect calls to the following routines with overalapping memory arguments:
[w]memcpy, str[n]cat, wcs[n]cat, str[n]cpy, wcs[n]cpy, [w]mempcpy, memccpy, stp[n]cpy
While valgrind can detect these cases, using a DSO such as MEMSTOMP can be significantly faster.
The MEMSTOMP code utilizes GPLV2+ and LGPL3 code. The GPLV2+ code is limited to the backtrace code which is not thread safe and may need to be disabled/rewritten.
Benefit to Fedora
MEMSTOMP benefits Fedora by providing additional tools to help developers identify code with undefined behaviour and at a lower runtime cost than tools such as valgrind.
Scope
How To Test
MEMSTOMP does not currently have a testsuite. I propose adding a simple testsuite to MEMSTOMP which verifies that a call to each of the listed functions with overlapping arguments is detected and that a call to each without overlapping arguments results in proper copying.
User Experience
No user visible changes unless the user explicitly used the MEMSTOP DSO. For those who use the MEMSTOP DSO they would get a segfault or backtrace when running their application if the application has a call to one of the affected functions with overalapping memory arguments.
Dependencies
None.
Contingency Plan
Given the system runs fine without this DSO, worst case is we just remove the DSO.
Documentation
None available yet. Usage, list of functions/arguments checked would be added if package is approved.
Release Notes
Fedora 19 comes MEMSTOMP a DSO which can be preloaded into an application to discover overlapping memory arguments to certain functions at a lower runtime cost than valgrind.