Problem with readline is its API. It's basically a bunch of global variables with no clear dependencies between them. In this specific case that I'm seeing: in interactive mode the cmdComplete() causes instant crash of virsh/virt-admin: ==27999== Invalid write of size 1 ==27999== at 0x516EF71: _rl_init_line_state (readline.c:742) ==27999== by 0x5170054: rl_initialize (readline.c:1192) ==27999== by 0x516E5E4: readline (readline.c:379) ==27999== by 0x1B7024: vshReadline (vsh.c:3048) ==27999== by 0x140DCF: main (virsh.c:905) ==27999== Address 0x0 is not stack'd, malloc'd or (recently) free'd This is because readline keeps a copy of pointer to rl_line_buffer and the moment cmdComplete() returns and readline takes over, it accesses the copy which is now a dangling pointer. To fix this, just keep the original state of rl_line_buffer and restore it. Fixes: 41400ac1dda55b817388a4050aa823051bda2e05 Fixes: a0e1ada63c0afdc2af3b9405cbf637d8bd28700c Signed-off-by: Michal Privoznik <mprivozn@xxxxxxxxxx> --- tools/vsh.c | 3 +++ 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+) diff --git a/tools/vsh.c b/tools/vsh.c index de869248b4..c91d756885 100644 --- a/tools/vsh.c +++ b/tools/vsh.c @@ -3511,6 +3511,7 @@ cmdComplete(vshControl *ctl, const vshCmd *cmd) const vshClientHooks *hooks = ctl->hooks; const char *lastArg = NULL; const char **args = NULL; + char *old_rl_line_buffer = NULL; g_auto(GStrv) matches = NULL; char **iter; @@ -3531,6 +3532,7 @@ cmdComplete(vshControl *ctl, const vshCmd *cmd) vshReadlineInit(ctl); + old_rl_line_buffer = g_steal_pointer(&rl_line_buffer); if (!(rl_line_buffer = g_strdup(vshCommandOptArgvString(cmd, "string")))) rl_line_buffer = g_strdup(""); @@ -3540,6 +3542,7 @@ cmdComplete(vshControl *ctl, const vshCmd *cmd) matches = vshReadlineCompletion(lastArg, 0, 0); g_clear_pointer(&rl_line_buffer, g_free); + rl_line_buffer = g_steal_pointer(&old_rl_line_buffer); if (!matches) return false; -- 2.44.1