Subject: softmac possible null deref [was: Complete report of Null dereference errors in kernel 2.6.17.1]

From: Daniel Drake <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 01:01:27 +0100

Tom Walter Dillig wrote:
> [109]
> 452 net/ieee80211/softmac/ieee80211softmac_io.c
> Possible null dereference of variable "*pkt" in function call
> (include/asm/string.h:__constant_c_and_count_memset) checked at
> (453:net/ieee80211/softmac/ieee80211softmac_io.c)

Either I'm misunderstanding, or this is bogus.

when *pkt is allocated by the various child functions (e.g. 
ieee80211softmac_disassoc_deauth), it is always checked for NULL before 
being used.

Finally, line 453 does another NULL check, so that any failures 
generated above are handled appropriately.

What is the report trying to say?

Daniel