[torquedev] Building Torque with _FORTIFY_SOURCE ?

[Chris Samuel]

Hi all,

Is it worth configuring Torque by default to use the GCC
stack overflow checks built in through _FORTIFY_SOURCE
in recent versions of GCC ?

There are some details here:

http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc-patches/2004-09/msg02055.html

but basically the nub of it is:

> The intended use in glibc is that by default no protection is
> done, when the above GCC 4.0+ and -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=1 is used
> at optimization level 1 and above, security measures that
> shouldn't change behaviour of conforming programs are taken.
> With -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 some more checking is added, but
> some conforming programs might fail.
> 
> Buffer overflows can be detected at compile time
> or at runtime, if the compiler can detect they will not
> happen, normal functions as opposed to their checking
> alternatives are used.

There is a comparison of _FORTIFY_SOURCE with GCC's
Stack Smashing Protector (SSP) here:

http://blog.eonsec.com/2008/01/ssp-and-fortifysource.html

cheers,
Chris
-- 
Christopher Samuel - (03) 9925 4751 - Systems Manager
 The Victorian Partnership for Advanced Computing
 P.O. Box 201, Carlton South, VIC 3053, Australia
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