Re: stat to open race condition (was Re: [Integrit-users] Re: integrit)

[Ed L C. <ec...@co...>]

lumpy <lu...@9m...> writes:

> Probably, the only reason i said its not SO important is that if the
> file that its link to changes, itll still report an error. at most
> youre wasting the time to read the file to make the checksum.  Other
> than that, your program will basically work the same, because if
> youre statting the destination of the link, youll know if hte link
> has changed. make sense?

I don't want to ever follow symlinks.  If a sysadmin says, "don't
check /proc" or "don't check /mnt/remote_hosts", then integrit
shouldn't go there, even via a symlink.  integrit treats symlinks in
/home/foo as symlinks in /home/foo, not as files in some random place.
It's the natural thing to do.

In order to avoid following symlinks, lstat is necessary.  

> btw, i forgot to say, this project kicks ass. rock on.

Thanks!  I agree.  :)  And I was already going to say that I forgot to
thank you for pointing out an interesting and real race condition that
could hang integrit.  

-- 
--Ed Cashin                    integrit file verification system
  ec...@co...          http://integrit.sourceforge.net/