Subject: Netdevice reference counting issues in net/core/dv.c

From: Ben Greear <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2005 23:42:54 -0700

dv.c has several issues.

First, it uses the check_args method to find the
device.  It acquires a hold on the device and then
drops it in the same method.  Upon return from this
check_args method, code then continues to use the reference
to the device.  This could lead to access-after-free errors.

Also, check_args has an arbitrary device-index check to make
sure it is less that 1000.  This is bogus since we can have many
more devices than that...

If there is a maintainer that wants to fix this, please be my
guest.  Otherwise, I'll make a stab at fixing it as part of
my ref-count debugging work.

Thanks,
Ben

-- 
Ben Greear <[email-masked]>
Candela Technologies Inc  http://www.candelatech.com