[PATCH v2 2/3] net: dhcp: use xstrndup for bp_file to prevent read past field

Sascha Hauer
2026-04-02T07:00:29Z

bootp_copy_net_params() uses strlen() and xstrdup() on bp->bp_file,
which is a fixed 128-byte field in the BOOTP packet. If a DHCP server
sends a packet where all 128 bytes are non-null, strlen() reads past
the field boundary into the options data looking for a null terminator,
and xstrdup() then copies the oversized result.

Use a simple bp->bp_file[0] check for the non-empty test and
xstrndup() bounded by sizeof(bp->bp_file) to ensure we never read
past the field.

Signed-off-by: Sascha Hauer <s.hauer@pengutronix.de>
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
---
net/dhcp.c | 4 ++--
1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/net/dhcp.c b/net/dhcp.c
index 1cb3fef5d7..f4e4033351 100644
--- a/net/dhcp.c
+++ b/net/dhcp.c
@@ -158,8 +158,8 @@ static void bootp_copy_net_params(struct bootp *bp)
dhcp_result->ip = net_read_ip(&bp->bp_yiaddr);
dhcp_result->serverip = net_read_ip(&bp->bp_siaddr);

- if (strlen(bp->bp_file) > 0)
- dhcp_result->bootfile = xstrdup(bp->bp_file);
+ if (bp->bp_file[0] != '\0')
+ dhcp_result->bootfile = xstrndup(bp->bp_file, sizeof(bp->bp_file));
}

static int dhcp_set_string_options(int option, const char *str, u8 *e)

--
2.47.3