Wed 22 Jun 2005 07:59:18 PM UTC, original submission:
History
-------
I maintain the GNUstep ebuilds for Gentoo. When I first started doing that, I did some researching, and noticed some Gentoo security dev once mentioning that "ffcall does evil things" in an email. I emailed the security people and asked them why ffcall was "evil". Basically, the response was that ffcall uses trampolines, which aren't the safest way to go. Since then, libffi has been the only option to use, since it did not use trampolines.
Until yesterday, I have never had a complete breakdown of GNUstep, although minor issues where attributed to libffi/GNUstep/GSFFIInvocation/mframe.
Bug
---
Yesterday, I finished up my base install of a new, nice, fast dev box I purchased. I installed my GNUstep ebuilds. I installed GWorkspace. I installed GNUMail.
GWorkspace crashes when I drag a folder icon to the "top bar" (to createa a "shortcut"). GNUMail crashes when I click in a textbox (to configure email accounts. Both crash with a SIGSEGV.
I attempted to use gdb to set breakpoints and see what was crashing it, but no matter what I break'd on, the stack was completely blown. Thinking it was gpbs and/or gdnc and/or gdomap, I ran all in the foreground. I used LD_DEBUG. I didn't start them at login, and had the applications launch them. Nothing helped.
I decided to at least try ffcall, regardless of if I would continue using it -- ffcall removes all of the problems.
Request
-------
Depending on if GNUstep "fears" trampolines in ffcall, or the mess that is the GSFFIInvocation code, one of these packages should be chosen.
Summary
-------
GNUstep use of libffi is completely broken, and needs to be fixed, or removed, as it is likely the cause of most "sketchy" bugs with core GNUstep packages (that I have ever experienced).
|