WhatBrokeToday
Today's Trends
mediumInvestigatingOpenSSH

sshd and crypt Magic Value Mismatch Causes Null Reference Issue

  1. Investigating(current)
  2. Trending(upcoming)
  3. Workaround available(upcoming)
  4. Resolved(upcoming)

Executive summary

A bug dubbed the *sshole bug occurred due to a 'fix' aimed at avoiding null crashes that used a magic value with two different meanings in sshd and crypt. The incident highlights potential pitfalls in handling null states across C-based systems.

No verified workaround yet

None of the linked reports describe a mitigation. Follow this incident to hear when one appears.

Technical root cause

A magic value used to avoid null crashes was interpreted differently in sshd and crypt.

Evidence

1 report · 1 BlueskyShow
  1. [1]
    Bluesky First report
    The *sshole bug is really interesting (scroll down on www.sshhole.com for the full story): a "fix" to avoid null crashes involved a magic value that had two different meanings in sshd and crypt.(opens Bluesky post in a new tab)

    The *sshole bug is really interesting (scroll down on www.sshhole.com for the full story): a "fix" to avoid null crashes involved a magic value that had two different meanings in sshd and crypt. A language with no nulls and proper sum types would have prevented this. Like… Rust and its Result type 🦀

    by swallez.com 3upvotes 1comments

Timeline

  1. First report on Bluesky post

    The *sshole bug is really interesting (scroll down on www.sshhole.com for the full story): a "fix" to avoid null crashes involved a magic value that had two different meanings in sshd and crypt.

    Source