4 ms·

I suspect it's this bug: https://blog.cloudflare.com/incident-report-on-memory-leak-caused-by-cloudflare-parser-bug/ https://blog.cloudflare.com/incident-report

I suspect it's this bug: https://blog.cloudflare.com/incident-report-on-memory-leak-caused-by-cloudflare-parser-bug/ https://blog.cloudflare.com/incident-report-on-memory-leak-c... HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13718752 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13718752

sligor 8y ago
The blog post says that this bug is inside code written in C and Ragel (a parser generator), Rust seems not to be involved in this bug
- tptacek 8y ago
  That's the point; Rust operates in the places they needed C before, and C is unsafe.
  - pjmlp 8y ago
    There is a huge difference between being able to track down unsafe statements and a language where 100% of the source code is unsafe, given the 200+ cases of UB, implicit conversions and lack of data integrity validations. Sure logic errors can always happen, but moving away from C would already get a portion of memory corruption issues out of the table. Unless you are asserting that Mesa/Cedar, NEWP, Oberon, Oberon-07, Active Oberon, Modula-2, Modula-2+, Modula-3, Object Pascal, Concurrent Pascal, Component Pascal, Basic, D, Ada, SPARK, Sing#, Midori, BLISS, PL/I, PL/S, PL/8, PL/M, Swift, HPC# are all unsafe as C.
- masklinn 8y ago
  The slide is a bit unclear, the whole deck is terse and clearly not intended to be consumed independently from the presentation, so "Safe (we had a bug once…)" should be interpreted as "safe (we kind-of had a not-very-small bug in our C code once)" not "Safe (we've only had one Rust bug)"
  - steven_pack 8y ago
    Indeed. It was very much just prepared as some talking points for the folks in the room. Makes more sense with the video. Note to self: Stuff about Rust always makes it to HN. :)
- buro9 8y ago
  Rust was not the cause of the bug. It was a C bug and was exposed during the process of deleting the code in question (adding the new code to replace it actually exposed the old bug). It has given us a very keen awareness of just how bad such bugs can be, and hence "we had a bug once" might be considered the soft way of saying "no more effing C". Of course we'll still have C and C++ as we're heavily invested, but if there are safer alternatives that we can use those will definitely be considered first.
  - thurston 8y ago
    What rarely gets discussed in this case was that old, working code was modified in a critical way in order to accommodate new code when that didn't need to be done at all. It was actually a failure in the software development process.
hellofunk 8y ago
I can't tell if the OP is suggesting the bug they had was due to Rust, or if they adopted Rust for a safe language they once had a bug?
- lobster_johnson 8y ago
  The latter. I think it's a sheepish admission that the bug (caused by unsafe C code) is a reason to prefer Rust's safety, which should help them prevent another one like it.
  - StavrosK 8y ago
    It is, the person presenting says so in the video.
- serioussecurity 8y ago
  The cloudflare bug was a memory safety issue in C code, which is basically the whole point of trust
- MikkoFinell 8y ago
  Hah, could you imagine, someone saying they found a bug in a piece of Rust code? I haven't read the HN terms of service, but I'm guessing they you'd get banned pretty quick for something as egregious as that.

sligor 8y ago

The blog post says that this bug is inside code written in C and Ragel (a parser generator), Rust seems not to be involved in this bug

tptacek 8y ago
That's the point; Rust operates in the places they needed C before, and C is unsafe.
- pjmlp 8y ago
  There is a huge difference between being able to track down unsafe statements and a language where 100% of the source code is unsafe, given the 200+ cases of UB, implicit conversions and lack of data integrity validations. Sure logic errors can always happen, but moving away from C would already get a portion of memory corruption issues out of the table. Unless you are asserting that Mesa/Cedar, NEWP, Oberon, Oberon-07, Active Oberon, Modula-2, Modula-2+, Modula-3, Object Pascal, Concurrent Pascal, Component Pascal, Basic, D, Ada, SPARK, Sing#, Midori, BLISS, PL/I, PL/S, PL/8, PL/M, Swift, HPC# are all unsafe as C.
masklinn 8y ago
The slide is a bit unclear, the whole deck is terse and clearly not intended to be consumed independently from the presentation, so "Safe (we had a bug once…)" should be interpreted as "safe (we kind-of had a not-very-small bug in our C code once)" not "Safe (we've only had one Rust bug)"
- steven_pack 8y ago
  Indeed. It was very much just prepared as some talking points for the folks in the room. Makes more sense with the video. Note to self: Stuff about Rust always makes it to HN. :)
buro9 8y ago
Rust was not the cause of the bug. It was a C bug and was exposed during the process of deleting the code in question (adding the new code to replace it actually exposed the old bug). It has given us a very keen awareness of just how bad such bugs can be, and hence "we had a bug once" might be considered the soft way of saying "no more effing C". Of course we'll still have C and C++ as we're heavily invested, but if there are safer alternatives that we can use those will definitely be considered first.
- thurston 8y ago
  What rarely gets discussed in this case was that old, working code was modified in a critical way in order to accommodate new code when that didn't need to be done at all. It was actually a failure in the software development process.

hellofunk 8y ago

I can't tell if the OP is suggesting the bug they had was due to Rust, or if they adopted Rust for a safe language they once had a bug?

lobster_johnson 8y ago
The latter. I think it's a sheepish admission that the bug (caused by unsafe C code) is a reason to prefer Rust's safety, which should help them prevent another one like it.
- StavrosK 8y ago
  It is, the person presenting says so in the video.
serioussecurity 8y ago
The cloudflare bug was a memory safety issue in C code, which is basically the whole point of trust
MikkoFinell 8y ago
Hah, could you imagine, someone saying they found a bug in a piece of Rust code? I haven't read the HN terms of service, but I'm guessing they you'd get banned pretty quick for something as egregious as that.