6 ms·
Wouldn't a strongly typed language like rust sill catch a bad datafile? E.g. loading it would require you to setup a maximal size and a valid configuration str
by bpfrh 2y ago
Wouldn't a strongly typed language like rust sill catch a bad datafile?
E.g. loading it would require you to setup a maximal size and a valid configuration struct?
- YZF 2y agoIt could. We haven't seen the code but it could be something like: char *ptr = parsefile(file_we_released_without_testing); if(ptr[0]=='A') { } // BSOD loop parsefile returns NULL unexpectedly. So this style of error can be addressed by using a safe language. Or static analysis. Or code reviews. Or not doing this stuff in the kernel. Or formal methods. Or fuzzing. As someone else said you likely can't easily use Rust for Windows kernel modules/drivers. I'm sure a strong enough engineering team could do it (e.g. transpile Rust to C) but I'm not sure it's the biggest engineering problem CrowdStrike has. Microsoft has a complete tool-chain for developing these and it's usually C/C++ or assembly.
- ArtixFox 2y agounhandled null in rust will still cause panic. still cause the bootloop.
- YZF 2y agoI'm not a Rust expert but wouldn't you pick some ("null-safe") type that can't be null in Rust? A reference?
- ArtixFox 2y agoi dont think it matters, if you have any exception in the critical boot part, you will end up with this. Rust cannot fix this. Microkernels might.
- YZF 2y agoSomething like this Go snippet: func parsefile(string) string { } func thatfunctionthatcrashedinC() { defer func() { if err := recover(); err != nil { log.Println("panic occurred:", err) } }() result := parsefile(badfilethatcrashesC); if result[0] == 'A' { } } so... using a type that can't be nil. recovering from runtime panics (you have to do that but this can be enforced by standards and also it can happen up the stack for all code, e.g. like http handlers do by default in the Go standard library). More importantly these errors are not segfaults in Go, i.e. there's "exceptions" you can and should catch and there are exceptions you can't.
- ArtixFox 2y agoYou have all that in C++ too. Exceptions are near zero cost and used everywhere, sometimes even in embedded stuff too.
- YZF 2y agoSure. I speak C++ ;) You can do this in C++ but I think it's generally more crash prone than Go. Based on personal experience of ~20 years of C++ and ~10 of Go I've debugged many a core dump in C++ and I think zero in Go. You can restrict yourself to the somewhat safer parts of C++ for sure.