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Article #120

mail vs. long pathnames

#120
From: utzoohenry
Date: Thu, 28 Apr 1983 19:26
15 lines
1142 bytes
It's just possible that this one has been published before, but...
If you are on the network (if you aren't, how are you reading this??)
and are running V7 mail, then RUN do not walk to the routine sendrmt()
in the source and change the size of cmd from 64 to, say, 512.  The
network can very easily generate pathnames long enough to blow 64 chars
of buffer, and very strange things can happen if it does.  It happened
to us today, and the result was an infinite-looping mail program (bad
enough) that was also trying to generate an infinitely-long file (far
worse).  It showed up after a few megabytes when a filesystem ran out of
space.  Not good if it happens over the long weekend...  Still worse
if the thing manages to terminate somehow and uucp tries to send 10
megabytes long-distance at 1200 baud...

					Henry Spencer
					U of Toronto
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Message-ID: <bnews.utzoo.2936>
Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!unknown!not-for-mail

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From: utzoo!henry
Newsgroups: net.bugs.v7
Title: mail vs. long pathnames 
Article-I.D.: utzoo.2936
Posted: Thu Apr 28 19:26:15 1983
Received: Thu Apr 28 19:26:15 1983
Subject: mail vs. long pathnames
Date: Thu, 28 Apr 1983 19:26:15 +0000
Message-ID: <bnews.utzoo.2936>