cURL / Mailing Lists / curl-library / Single Mail

curl-library

Re: libcurl documentation bug

From: John Marshall <jm18_at_sanger.ac.uk>
Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 08:58:12 +0100

On 15 Sep 2016, at 14:53, Short, Todd <tshort_at_akamai.com> wrote:
> We’ve discovered a bug in the libcurl documentation. The issue revolves around curl_global_cleanup() that ends up calling CRYPTO_cleanup_all_ex_data(). This OpenSSL function is meant to be called only once, at program termination, as it cleans up data that leaves users of ex_data in an inconsistent state. (tl;dr: ex_data index values are basically reset, but are still held by application).
>
> At https://curl.haxx.se/libcurl/c/libcurl.html referring to curl_global_init() and curl_global_cleanup():
>
> “You can call both of these multiple times, as long as all calls meet these requirements and the number of calls to each is the same.â€
>
> This statement is wrong, as curl_global_cleanup() cannot be called multiple times due to CRYPTO_cleanup_all_ex_data().

Perhaps I am missing something here, but the curl_global_* functions maintain a counter so if the calls are nested, e.g. curl_global_init / curl_global_init / curl_global_cleanup / curl_global_cleanup, then only the last call to curl_global_cleanup() actually calls CRYPTO_cleanup_all_ex_data(). So all is well, no?

Or are you thinking of a scenario like curl_global_init / curl_global_cleanup ... curl_global_init / curl_global_cleanup in which curl gets torn down and later re-inited? And you're saying that Curl_ossl_init() (called by curl_global_init()) does not and/or cannot sufficiently reinitialise this data?

    John

-- 
 The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute is operated by Genome Research 
 Limited, a charity registered in England with number 1021457 and a 
 company registered in England with number 2742969, whose registered 
 office is 215 Euston Road, London, NW1 2BE. 
-------------------------------------------------------------------
List admin: https://cool.haxx.se/list/listinfo/curl-library
Etiquette:  https://curl.haxx.se/mail/etiquette.html
Received on 2016-09-16