[PATCH v2] bfd: validate COFF and XCOFF symbol tables before the linker walks them
Project / Subsystem
binutils / bfd
Date
2026-10-06
Proposer
Harshit Kumar <harshit7kr@gmail.com>
Source type
public_inbox
Consensus
Proposed
Sentiment
—/10
Technical tradeoffs
- • Adds runtime checks for symbol table parsing, potentially incurring a small performance overhead.
All attributes
- project
- binutils
- subsystem
- bfd
- patch_id
- —
- discussion_id
- 20261006073641.1044917-1-harshit7kr@gmail.com
- source_type
- public_inbox
- title
- [PATCH v2] bfd: validate COFF and XCOFF symbol tables before the linker walks them
- headline
- bfd: validate COFF and XCOFF symbol tables before the linker walks them
- tldr
- Harshit Kumar submits a patch to validate COFF and XCOFF symbol tables in bfd to prevent buffer overflows when the linker processes them.
- proposer
- Harshit Kumar <harshit7kr@gmail.com>
- consensus
- Proposed
- outcome
- proposed
- sentiment_score
- —
- technical_tradeoffs
-
- • Adds runtime checks for symbol table parsing, potentially incurring a small performance overhead.
- series_id
- —
- series_role
- standalone
- series_parts
- []
- tags
-
- • security
- • bfd
- • coff
- • xcoff
- • linker
- bugzilla_url
- —
- date
- 2026-10-06T00:00:00.000Z
[PATCH v2] bfd: validate COFF and XCOFF symbol tables before the linker walks them
Harshit Kumar proposes a patch to enhance the robustness of the binutils linker by validating COFF and XCOFF symbol tables. The current implementation can lead to buffer overflows if a symbol claims more auxiliary entries than available, potentially causing heap writes. This patch addresses unvalidated paths in both COFF and XCOFF processing, building upon previous hardening efforts.