The loop in cache-tree's update_one iterates over all the entries in the index. For each one, we find the cache-tree subtree which represents our path (creating it if necessary), and then recurse into update_one again. The return value we get is the number of index entries that belonged in that subtree. So for example, with entries: a/one a/two b/one We start by processing the first entry, "a/one". We would find the subtree for "a" and recurse into update_one. That would then handle "a/one" and "a/two", and return the value 2. The parent function then skips past the 2 handled entries, and we continue by processing "b/one". If the recursed-into update_one ever returns 0, then we make no forward progress in our loop. We would process "a/one" over and over, infinitely. This should not happen normally. Any subtree we create must have at least one path in it (the one that we are processing!). However, we may also reuse a cache-tree entry we found in the on-disk index. For the same reason, this should also never have zero entries. However, certain buggy versions of libgit2 could produce such bogus cache-tree records. The libgit2 bug has since been fixed, but it does not hurt to protect ourselves against bogus input coming from the on-disk data structures. Note that this is not a die("BUG") or assert, because it is not an internal bug, but rather a corrupted on-disk structure. It's possible that we could even recover from it (by throwing out the bogus cache-tree entry), but it is not worth the effort; the important thing is that we report an error instead of looping infinitely. Signed-off-by: Jeff King <peff@xxxxxxxx> --- I'm a little iffy on this just because it is fixing one particular bug, and I am sure there are probably a bunch of other ways to have a bogus index. Fundamentally, I think we pretty much trust that the index was not maliciously generated (unlike packfiles, for instance, which can come from elsewhere). Still, this is one step closer to safe, and the bug was seen in the wild, so maybe it is worth doing. We could alternatively (or in addition) reject 0-entry cache trees when reading them from disk. The trick, though, is that it is not just records with 0 entries, but ones where the sum of the entries and subtree entries is 0. Given that it is not something we expect to happen, it is easier to catch it here. And we know there can be no regressions for missed corner cases, because the case we are catching here would _always_ have gone into an infinite loop before this patch. cache-tree.c | 2 ++ 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+) diff --git a/cache-tree.c b/cache-tree.c index 215202c..32772b9 100644 --- a/cache-tree.c +++ b/cache-tree.c @@ -303,6 +303,8 @@ static int update_one(struct cache_tree *it, flags); if (subcnt < 0) return subcnt; + if (!subcnt) + die("index cache-tree records empty sub-tree"); i += subcnt; sub->count = subcnt; /* to be used in the next loop */ *skip_count += subskip; -- 2.1.2.596.g7379948 -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html