There are many places where kernel code wants to have several different
typed trailing flexible arrays. This would normally be done with multiple
flexible arrays in a union, but since GCC and Clang don't (on the surface)
allow this, there have been many open-coded workarounds, usually involving
neighboring 0-element arrays at the end of a structure. For example,
instead of something like this:
struct thing {
...
union {
struct type1 foo[];
struct type2 bar[];
};
};
code works around the compiler with:
struct thing {
...
struct type1 foo[0];
struct type2 bar[];
};
Another case is when a flexible array is wanted as the single member
within a struct (which itself is usually in a union). For example, this
would be worked around as:
union many {
...
struct {
struct type3 baz[0];
};
};
These kinds of work-arounds cause problems with size checks against such
zero-element arrays (for example when building with -Warray-bounds and
-Wzero-length-bounds, and with the coming FORTIFY_SOURCE improvements),
so they must all be converted to "real" flexible arrays, avoiding warnings
like this:
fs/hpfs/anode.c: In function 'hpfs_add_sector_to_btree':
fs/hpfs/anode.c:209:27: warning: array subscript 0 is outside the bounds of an interior zero-length array 'struct bplus_internal_node[0]' [-Wzero-length-bounds]
209 | anode->btree.u.internal[0].down = cpu_to_le32(a);
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^~~
In file included from fs/hpfs/hpfs_fn.h:26,
from fs/hpfs/anode.c:10:
fs/hpfs/hpfs.h:412:32: note: while referencing 'internal'
412 | struct bplus_internal_node internal[0]; /* (internal) 2-word entries giving
| ^~~~~~~~
drivers/net/can/usb/etas_es58x/es58x_fd.c: In function 'es58x_fd_tx_can_msg':
drivers/net/can/usb/etas_es58x/es58x_fd.c:360:35: warning: array subscript 65535 is outside the bounds of an interior zero-length array 'u8[0]' {aka 'unsigned char[]'} [-Wzero-length-bounds]
360 | tx_can_msg = (typeof(tx_can_msg))&es58x_fd_urb_cmd->raw_msg[msg_len];
| ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In file included from drivers/net/can/usb/etas_es58x/es58x_core.h:22,
from drivers/net/can/usb/etas_es58x/es58x_fd.c:17:
drivers/net/can/usb/etas_es58x/es58x_fd.h:231:6: note: while referencing 'raw_msg'
231 | u8 raw_msg[0];
| ^~~~~~~
However, it _is_ entirely possible to have one or more flexible arrays
in a struct or union: it just has to be in another struct. And since it
cannot be alone in a struct, such a struct must have at least 1 other
named member -- but that member can be zero sized. Wrap all this nonsense
into the new DECLARE_FLEX_ARRAY() in support of having flexible arrays
in unions (or alone in a struct).
As with struct_group(), since this is needed in UAPI headers as well,
implement the core there, with a non-UAPI wrapper.
Additionally update kernel-doc to understand its existence.
https://github.com/KSPP/linux/issues/137
Cc: Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de>
Cc: "Gustavo A. R. Silva" <gustavoars@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Kees Cook <keescook@chromium.org>
3080ea5553