Bug 72296 – Recent hardened-dev-sources break SCSI tape usage.

• Status: RESOLVED FIXED
• Product: Gentoo Linux

[Description Robin Johnson 2004-11-23 17:00:27 UTC]

I upgraded a machine to -r12 of hardened-dev-sources, and this broke SCSI tape backups - nothing can access the device (/dev/nst0). The machine was working fine on -r4 previously. I've traced it down to this change being the possible culprit, just running a test to confirm it 100%.

diff -Nuarwb linux-2.6.7-hardened-r4/drivers/scsi/st.c linux-2.6.7-hardened-r12/drivers/scsi/st.c
--- linux-2.6.7-hardened-r4/drivers/scsi/st.c   2004-08-05 13:37:34.000000000 -0700
+++ linux-2.6.7-hardened-r12/drivers/scsi/st.c  2004-11-15 19:34:15.000000000 -0800
@@ -1220,7 +1220,7 @@

        if (ppos != &filp->f_pos) {
                /* "A request was outside the capabilities of the device." */
-               retval = (-ENXIO);
+               retval = (-ESPIPE);
                goto out;
        }

[Comment 1 Robin Johnson 2004-11-24 12:46:25 UTC]

Yup, I confirm that reversing the patch below allows tape backup to work again in -r12.
Could this please be put into -r13 of hardened-dev-sources?

[Comment 2 Robin Johnson 2004-11-29 15:50:11 UTC]

hello?

[Comment 3 solar (RETIRED) 2004-11-29 16:32:46 UTC]

tocharian can you take a peek at this.

[Comment 4 Brandon Hale (RETIRED) 2004-11-29 19:52:05 UTC]

Robin, after digging around a bit, the code you are referencing here
is included from genpatches-base (gentoo-dev-sources). It is part of 1120-CAN-2004-0415.patch, and it seems very clear that it is here for
a good reason. Reverting a security fixes doesn't seem like sane course
of action. Are other distributions including the same fix as us?  Does
anyone see a solution that closes the vulnerability and leaves Robin with
a working tape drive?

[Comment 5 Brandon Hale (RETIRED) 2004-11-29 20:21:12 UTC]

Better question, does this affect newer upstream kernels, where the security patch
should be merged? This almost certainly isnt specific to hardened.

[Comment 6 Robin Johnson 2004-11-29 22:14:10 UTC]

as of 2.6.8/2.6.9 (they are the same), the entire if statement I have in my patch is removed, and the code is revised very slightly.
as of the upcoming 2.6.10, there is a very major revision to the st driver.

Also, checking your hardened-dev-sources-2.6.7-r15, the line of troublesome code seems to be reverted anyway. So i'm suspecting it was an extranous line that made it into the 1120-CAN-2004-0415.patch somehow.

[Comment 7 Brandon Hale (RETIRED) 2004-12-01 07:04:37 UTC]

Please confirm that -r16 is working correctly. If so we can close the bug.

[Comment 8 Robin Johnson 2004-12-01 14:57:50 UTC]

I'll be rebooting the box as of this friday, so I'll post back the results then.

[Comment 9 Adam Mondl (RETIRED) 2004-12-06 13:02:52 UTC]

H-d-s -r17 is out, is this issue fixed or?

[Comment 10 Robin Johnson 2004-12-07 17:06:36 UTC]

Yup, -r17 works perfectly and allows my backups to work :-).
Closing this as it's fixed now.