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From: aps@ieee.org (Armando Stettner)
Subject: [TUHS] History of strncpy
Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2013 09:24:26 -0600	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <12408BE9-5FC8-4ECA-93C1-38D27EF1DA23@ieee.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <5CE5BCC9-06CF-423D-AEBA-636952773EDA@ronnatalie.com>

I also second/support Ron's and uh Clem's view.  In addition to zeroing out the inumber field, "removing" a file decremented the reference count in the i-node causing it to be freed (not cleared) when the reference count went to zero.  There was no strncpy() in the kernel.  Was there a strcpy() (other than a macro) in the kernel??  Long live movtuc.

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Ronald Natalie <ron at ronnatalie.com>
> Subject: Re: [TUHS] History of strncpy
> Date: January 23, 2013 9:01:04 AM CST
> To: Clem Cole <clemc at ccc.com>
> Cc: tuhs at minnie.tuhs.org
> 
> I agree with uh Clem.   First off, Nevin's rememberence is wrong.   The I-node number was the first two bytes of the V6 directory entry followed by a FIXED 14 spaces for the name (null terminated or not depending on whether the length was there).
> 
> I can guarantee there was no STRNCPY in the kernel, and my memory is with Clem, the V6 and even the phototypesetter versions of the C compiler and libraries didn't have these functions.
> By the time Version 7 rolled around, the variable length directories had also appeared in the filesystem.    I suspect strcpy arrived with the "portable I/O library", an abomination that eventually evolved into the stdio library and to this day is still stinking up the standard C language.
> 
> Amusingly, removing a file only zeroed out the inumber field.   This could lead the creative hacker to leave all sorts of fun messages in the directory by creating and removing files carefully.
> We had an alternate shell that was removed for security reasons and one day I found if you did "cat /tmp" there was some noise at the top for the current user of it but then a bunch of new lines and a message that said "Looking for a ghost of nosh?"
> 
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
> 



  reply	other threads:[~2013-01-23 15:24 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 28+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2013-01-23  4:03 Nevin Liber
2013-01-23  4:41 ` Warren Toomey
2013-01-23  4:58 ` Warner Losh
2013-01-23 14:16 ` Clem Cole
2013-01-23 15:01   ` Ronald Natalie
2013-01-23 15:24     ` Armando Stettner [this message]
2013-01-23 17:49       ` scj
2013-01-23 18:19       ` Ronald Natalie
2013-01-23 19:33         ` Ronald Natalie
2013-01-23 19:59           ` Clem Cole
2013-01-23 22:43     ` Mary Ann Horton
2013-01-24  0:01       ` Clem Cole
2013-01-24  0:37 ` Jonathan Gevaryahu
2013-01-23 17:56 Michael Spacefalcon
2013-01-23 21:08 ` Larry McVoy
2013-01-23 21:39 ` Ronald Natalie
2013-01-23 21:46   ` John Cowan
2013-01-24  6:02     ` Larry McVoy
2013-01-24  6:34       ` Steve Nickolas
2013-01-24 14:42       ` Ronald Natalie
2013-01-24 14:52         ` Warner Losh
2013-01-24 16:01           ` Ronald Natalie
2013-01-24 18:31             ` Tom Ivar Helbekkmo
2013-01-25  2:06               ` Warner Losh
2013-01-24 16:21           ` Clem Cole
2013-02-01  0:28             ` Larry McVoy
2013-01-31 23:52           ` Random832
2013-02-01  0:06             ` Warner Losh

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