Subject: bug#16855: report a bug about shuf

From: valiant xiao <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 23 Feb 2014 16:03:59 +0800

Hi,

We have found a bug in shuf, and we think it may be result a security
problem.
we compile coreutils 8.22 which is download from
http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/coreutils/, and run it on
my box that is ubuntu 12.04 x64. the bug details as follows.

### Bug overview

    shuf -er or shuf -eer [ segment fault]
    impact [coreutils 8.22 ]

```
[15:03:59]xqx@server:~/data/xqx/projects/coreutils-8.22$
./obj-gcov/src/shuf -er
Segmentation fault (core dumped)

```

### Analysis

    when shuf execute -e without give the expected input lines, it will
assign n_lines to 0 in "write_random_lines" while the "repeat" (-r) be set.
and this var will be as the genmax parameter when "randint_genmax" function
called. the code as follows in shuf.c:

```
369   for (i = 0; i < count; i++)
370     {
371       const randint j = randint_choose (s, n_lines);
372       char *const *p = lines + j;
373       size_t len = p[1] - p[0];
374       if (fwrite (p[0], sizeof *p[0], len, stdout) != len)
375         return -1;
376     }
377

```

    'j' will be a random number between 0-0xffffffffffffffff in my 64bit
ubuntu, and 'p' will be a unexpected point which will be access next. when
p point to an ilegal memory, it will be error when access it, which may be
result in a Segmentation fault.

    if an attacker could control the random which gened by randint_choose,
it may be get the infomation without an legal authority.  However, It may
be difficult.

yours

xqx