Re: OSS nice tmp race

[crispin () CSE OGI EDU (Crispin Cowan)]

Joel Eriksson wrote:

> There are of course cases where it's not this easy to get rid of the need
> for a temporary file, the best way to fix this problem I think would be if
> all users had their own private tmp-directory. I have heard of patches
> that makes /tmp to a pseudo-directory that is "private" for each user
> that may be useful (I think it was for Linux, but I don't think it is
> widely spread).
>
> Since programmers keep repeating the old mistakes over and over again, the
> responsibility is ultimately the users. One can't check all of the
> sourcecode that we compile (at least not as thouroughly that may be
> needed), but eliminating the possibility of certain common bugs from
> having any dangerous implications is a first step. I think solutions like
> StackGuard and the like is of great use when it comes to this.

Thanks for the plug!  Unfortunately, I haven't thought of any StackGuard-like techniques for
treating race conditions.  Matt Bishop's excellent paper on race condtions has some reasons why
race conditions are un-decidable at the compiler level.

Crispin
-----
 Crispin Cowan, Research Assistant Professor of Computer Science, OGI
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