[QPID-2405] SASL<->Ruby binding can cause seg_faults

• Type: Bug
• Status: Closed
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Won't Fix
• Affects Version/s: 0.5
• Component/s: Ruby Client
• Labels: sasl segmenation_fault

Environment

Ubuntu, ruby 1.8.7, qpid 0.5

• Assignee: Ted Ross
• Reporter: Sam Hendley
• Created: 12/Feb/10 21:51
• Updated: 13/Aug/11 18:14
• Resolved: 13/Aug/11 18:14

Description

There is an issue with the sasl bindings where it returns a raw ruby VALUE type for the sasl context. This works UNTIL the ruby runtime tries to access that variable which then causes a segfault.

This is easy to see if you try to inspect the variable at all (like print it or ask for its class or methods). In my application, for reasons I haven't determined yet, just having this variable on the heap meant that when an exception occurred trying to print the exceptions message caused a seg fault.

In any case, passing back raw VALUEs to ruby code is a Bad Idea and goes against the spec. There is a simple macro and fix for this which wraps the returned value in a ruby object. This fixes the issue I was having and means the deleting of the object is done automatically (instead of having a manual free function).

I have a patch with the simple, low impact fix, really it would be better to the extension so the sasl client is repersented as a real ruby object but that would require atleast some client code changes.