commit: 325116f679777620a37ec55869a88fed0a155259
parent e8dcb21f7e661d27e22bb6179a9977731bfa9396
Author: Haelwenn (lanodan) Monnier <contact@hacktivis.me>
Date: Thu, 9 Feb 2023 15:26:04 +0100
notes/unix-defects: New page
Diffstat:
1 file changed, 43 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
diff --git a/notes/unix-defects.xhtml b/notes/unix-defects.xhtml
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+<!DOCTYPE html>
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
+ <head>
+<!--#include file="/templates/head.shtml" -->
+ <title>Unix defects — lanodan’s cyber-home</title>
+ </head>
+ <body>
+<!--#include file="/templates/en/nav.shtml" -->
+ <main>
+ <h1>Unix defects</h1>
+ <p>This tries to list all the defects that are present in Unix, an OS from the early 70's. I consider "Unix" what current Unix clones (BSDs, illumos, Linux, …) have implemented.</p>
+
+ <section>
+ <h2 id="internet">Internet</h2>
+ <p>Where Unix isn't internet-ready</p>
+
+ <section id="getaddrinfo">
+ <h3><code>getaddrinfo(3)</code>, <code>gethostbyname(3)</code>, …</h3>
+ <ul>
+ <li>Cannot handle <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Eyeballs">Happy Eyeballs</a> (one of the ways to support IPv6)</li>
+ <li>Doesn't handles <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SRV_record"><code>SRV</code> records</a>, similarly to how email is using <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MX_record"><code>MX</code> records</a> (not handled either but at least it's a special case).</li>
+ </ul>
+ <p>Compare this to <a href="http://man.9front.org/2/dial">Plan9 <code>dial(2)</code></a> which also has a nice <code>NetConnInfo</code> structure</p>
+ </section>
+
+ </section> <!-- internet -->
+
+ <section>
+ <h2 id="libc">libc and related Unix C shenanigans</h2>
+
+ <section>
+ <h3><code>NULL</code>-Terminated strings</h3>
+ <dd>
+ <dt>Slow</dt><dd>Time taken to obtain the length increases with each <em>byte</em> aka <code class="math">O(n)</code> while length prefix is constant-time <code class="math">O(1)</code>.</dd>
+ <dt>Unsafe</dt><dd>How do you handle NULL being present in a string? Or NULL being absent?</dd>
+ </dd>
+ </section>
+
+ </section> <!-- libc -->
+ </main>
+<!--#include file="/templates/en/footer.shtml" -->
+ </body>
+</html>
