Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Sun, 9 Feb 1997 12:57:33 -0600 (CST)
From:      Richard Holland <rholland@freon.republic.k12.mo.us>
To:        freebsd-security@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   buffer overruns
Message-ID:  <Pine.LNX.3.91.970209124900.2336B-100000@freon.republic.k12.mo.us>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.3.91.970209111131.2503B-100000@www.trifecta.com>

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
     With all of this locale stuff going on, it made me realize that I 
actually don't know what a buffer overrun is.  However I am learning C at 
the moment and have a basic idea down:

I know what in C, a variable takes up a certain amount of memory, like 
type char is usually 1 byte, so stating char var; in your code sets aside 
1 byte of memory aside.  So if you then said var = 'blah' You would step 
into other memory addresses right?  So the set locale bug is this only 
put differently.  It allocates X amount of bytes for the buffer, and 
people put to much junk into it, causing it to step into other memory 
addresses. 

If I am right here, How would you know just how far you have to go over 
and what the characters need to be once you get thus far?  Of course I 
could be totally wrong here.  Realize that I am just now covering 
pointers in the book I am reading on C :)



/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Richard A. Holland		  	      * Systems Administrator
rholland@freon.republic.k12.mo.us	      * UNIX consulting 
HANGER@getonthe.net	                      * Network Security	
hangar@irc

--------------------(FreeBSD,OpenBSD,NetBSD,Linux,AIX)----------------------




Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?Pine.LNX.3.91.970209124900.2336B-100000>