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The 25-Year-Old BSD Bug

Posted by Soulskill on from the better-late-than-never dept.

sproketboy writes with news that a developer named Marc Balmer has recently fixed a bug in a bit of BSD code which is roughly 25 years old. In addition to the OSnews summary, you can read Balmer's comments and a technical description of the bug. "This code will not work as expected when seeking to the second entry of a block where the first has been deleted: seekdir() calls readdir() which happily skips the first entry (it has inode set to zero), and advance to the second entry. When the user now calls readdir() to read the directory entry to which he just seekdir()ed, he does not get the second entry but the third. Much to my surprise I not only found this problem in all other BSDs or BSD derived systems like Mac OS X, but also in very old BSD versions. I first checked 4.4BSD Lite 2, and Otto confirmed it is also in 4.2BSD. The bug has been around for roughly 25 years or more."

14 of 213 comments (clear)

  1. more proof by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...of the superiority of Microsoft.

    1. Re:more proof by rubycodez · · Score: 3, Funny

      that's funny, since Microsoft has used gobs of BSD code over the years

  2. the developers probably knew about it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    but they had more important things to do. At least until Balmer started throwing chairs.

    1. Re:the developers probably knew about it by Cheapy · · Score: 4, Funny

      At that point they had far more important things to do.

      Such as dodging chairs.

      --
      Would you kindly mod me +1 insightful?
  3. Re:Wait... Would you ever hit this? by ivan256 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Of course, now that I've R'd the FA, I understand that it's the first entry in the block (of which a directory with a sufficient number of files would have multiple), and not the first entry in the directory. Kindly ignore my previous response... Nothing to see here...

  4. See? SEE? by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 4, Funny
    See? See?

    This is the power of Open Source!

    With all those eyes looking at the code, stuff like this gets ID'd and fixed LICKITY SPLIT!

    (runs and hides)

    --
    If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
  5. Trac by extirpater · · Score: 5, Funny

    Bug tracking software missed this because it's bug #1. lol.

    1. Re:Trac by chooks · · Score: 4, Funny

      I program in FORTRAN, you insensitive clod!

      --
      -- The Genesis project? What's that?
  6. BSD is Dying! by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 4, Funny

    If you define BSD as a collection of bugs, this story proves that BSD is dying.

    --

    --
    make install -not war

  7. After this long by Hawkeye477 · · Score: 4, Funny

    After this long would this not be considered a feature? :)

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  8. bug blassification, side effects and Insults! by JonTurner · · Score: 4, Funny

    3 thoughts on this:

    1. I think this bug would be classified "archeological".

    2. The question now is what happens to the Samba work-around patches. Now that the bug is fixed, do the patches cause a side-effect (i.e. "a new bug")?

    3. This gives rise to a new meme of nerd insults. "You call yourself a programmer? Why I've fixed bugs older than you!" Of course, only one man is entitled to use that line.

  9. Re:BSD is Dying! by MillionthMonkey · · Score: 3, Funny

    No, this story proves that BSD is dying because there was a bug in it and no complaints were heard for 25 years.

  10. Re:Many eyes make bugs shallow... by auric_dude · · Score: 4, Funny

    Surly a bug this old should be reclassified as a scrab beetle?

  11. Re:Many eyes make bugs shallow... by joshv · · Score: 5, Funny

    That's "scarab" beetle, and don't call me Surly.