From: Paul Eggert <eggert@cs.ucla.edu>
Date: Sun, 22 Mar 2026 21:08:47 +0000 (-0700)
Subject: gdbserver: fix unlikely getpkt buffer overflow
X-Git-Url: http://git.ipfire.org/gitweb.cgi?a=commitdiff_plain;h=9d3cf9efd51ebae3f45bb49e3544cb7eeb63a138;p=thirdparty%2Fbinutils-gdb.git

gdbserver: fix unlikely getpkt buffer overflow

This problem was reported by Manish Sharma.

Within gdbserver, in getpkt, there is no bounds checking as we parse
the incoming packet.  An unexpectedly large packet can therefore
overflow the allocated buffer.  Fixed by adding bounds checking.

If a packet is too long then in ACK mode we send out the NAK, but then
immediately return -1 as the result from getpkt.  Currently the only
thing that GDB can do when it sees a '-' (NAK) is resend the packet.
If the original packet was too long then the resent packet will also
be too long.  gdbserver would then be stuck re-reading the incoming
too long packet.  Now GDB does give up after 3 retries, but this means
gdbserver is relying on GDB to give up sending, when in reality,
gdbserver knows it's not going to be able to recover.  So I propose
that gdbserver should just give up once it sees a packet that is too
long.

While looking at the error handling in this case I noticed that in the
noack_mode case, if we get a packet with a bad checksum, or a packet
that is too long, getpkt will return success and gdbserver will try to
interpret whatever it has.  This seems like a bad idea.  So I've
updated this code path to also return an error.

Then there are a couple of places where we had a comment like this:

  /* FIXME:  Eventually add buffer overflow checking (to getpkt?)  */

Now that getpkt does have buffer overflow checking, I've removed these
comments.

Approved-By: Andrew Burgess <aburgess@redhat.com>
---

diff --git a/gdbserver/remote-utils.cc b/gdbserver/remote-utils.cc
index 34801d0b76f..d7049baf083 100644
--- a/gdbserver/remote-utils.cc
+++ b/gdbserver/remote-utils.cc
@@ -979,6 +979,7 @@ getpkt (char *buf)
 	    return -1;
 	}
 
+      bool fits_in_buf = true;
       bp = buf;
       while (1)
 	{
@@ -987,7 +988,11 @@ getpkt (char *buf)
 	    return -1;
 	  if (c == '#')
 	    break;
-	  *bp++ = c;
+	  /* The buffer is always allocated as 'PBUFSIZ + 1' so we know
+	     that this write will always be within the buffer.  */
+	  *bp = c;
+	  fits_in_buf = bp - buf < PBUFSIZ;
+	  bp += (fits_in_buf ? 1: 0);
 	  csum += c;
 	}
       *bp = 0;
@@ -995,22 +1000,30 @@ getpkt (char *buf)
       c1 = fromhex (readchar ());
       c2 = fromhex (readchar ());
 
-      if (csum == (c1 << 4) + c2)
+      unsigned char sentsum = (c1 << 4) + c2;
+      bool csum_ok = csum == sentsum;
+      if (csum_ok && fits_in_buf)
 	break;
 
+      if (!csum_ok)
+	fprintf (stderr, "Bad checksum, sentsum=0x%x, csum=0x%x, buf=%s\n",
+		 sentsum, csum, buf);
+      if (!fits_in_buf)
+	fprintf (stderr, "Packet too long\n");
       if (cs.noack_mode)
 	{
-	  fprintf (stderr,
-		   "Bad checksum, sentsum=0x%x, csum=0x%x, "
-		   "buf=%s [no-ack-mode, Bad medium?]\n",
-		   (c1 << 4) + c2, csum, buf);
-	  /* Not much we can do, GDB wasn't expecting an ack/nac.  */
-	  break;
+	  fprintf (stderr, "[no-ack-mode, Bad medium?]\n");
+	  /* Not much we can do, GDB wasn't expecting an ack/nak, just
+	     return an error to indicate the packet was bad.  */
+	  return -1;
 	}
 
-      fprintf (stderr, "Bad checksum, sentsum=0x%x, csum=0x%x, buf=%s\n",
-	       (c1 << 4) + c2, csum, buf);
-      if (!write_prim ("-", 1))
+      /* Send '-' (NAK) back to GDB.  If that fails, or if the incoming
+	 packet was too long, then return an error.  For the packet too
+	 long case there's no point repeating the loop, all GDB can do is
+	 resend the original packet, which will be too long again, and
+	 we'll be stuck in this loop forever.  */
+      if (!write_prim ("-", 1) || !fits_in_buf)
 	return -1;
     }
 
@@ -1526,7 +1539,6 @@ look_up_one_symbol (const char *name, CORE_ADDR *addrp, int may_ask_gdb)
   if (putpkt (cs.own_buf) < 0)
     return -1;
 
-  /* FIXME:  Eventually add buffer overflow checking (to getpkt?)  */
   len = getpkt (cs.own_buf);
   if (len < 0)
     return -1;
@@ -1656,7 +1668,6 @@ relocate_instruction (CORE_ADDR *to, CORE_ADDR oldloc)
   if (putpkt (cs.own_buf) < 0)
     return -1;
 
-  /* FIXME:  Eventually add buffer overflow checking (to getpkt?)  */
   len = getpkt (cs.own_buf);
   if (len < 0)
     return -1;