ENV31-C. Do not rely on an environment pointer following an operation that may invalidate it

Under many hosted environments it is possible to access the environment through a modified form of main():

main(int argc, char *argv[], char *envp[])

According to C99 [[ISO/IEC 9899-1999]]:

In a hosted environment, the main function receives a third argument, char *envp[], that points to a NULL-terminated array of pointers to char, each of which points to a string that provides information about the environment for this execution of the program.

However, modifying the environment by using the setenv() or putenv() functions, or by any other means, may cause the environment memory to be reallocated, with the result that envp now references an incorrect location. For example, POSIX says the following [[Open Group 04]]

Unanticipated results may occur if setenv() changes the external variable environ.  In particular, if the optional envp argument to main() is present, it is not changed, and thus may point to an obsolete copy of the environment (as may any other copy of environ).

According to the Microsoft Visual Studio 2005/.NET Framework 2.0 help pages:

The getenv function searches the list of environment variables for varname. getenv is not case sensitive in the Windows operating system. getenv and _putenv use the copy of the environment pointed to by the global variable _environ to access the environment. getenv operates only on the data structures accessible to the run-time library and not on the environment "segment" created for the process by the operating system. Therefore, programs that use the envp argument to main or wmain may retrieve invalid information.

When compiled with gcc-3.4.6 and run on Andrew Linux-2.6.16.29, the following code:

extern char **environ;

/* ... */

int main(int argc, char const *argv[], char const *envp[]) {
   printf("environ:  %p\n", environ);
   printf("envp:     %p\n", envp);
   setenv("MY_NEW_VAR", "new_value", 1);
   puts("--Added MY_NEW_VAR--");
   printf("environ:  %p\n", environ);
   printf("envp:     %p\n", envp);
}

Yields:

% ./envp-environ
environ: 0xbf8656ec
envp:    0xbf8656ec
--Added MY_NEW_VAR--
environ: 0x804a008
envp:    0xbf8656ec

It is evident from these results that the environment has been relocated as a result of the call to setenv().

Non-Compliant Code Example

After a call to setenv() or other function that modifies the environment, the envp pointer may no longer reference the environment.

int main(int argc, char const *argv[], char const *envp[]) {
   size_t i;
   setenv("MY_NEW_VAR", "new_value", 1);
   if (envp != NULL) {
      for (i = 0; envp[i] != NULL; i++) {
         puts(envp[i]);
      }
   }
   return 0;
}

Because envp no longer points to the current environment, this program has undefined behavior.

Compliant Solution (POSIX)

Use environ in place of envp when defined.

extern char **environ;

/* ... */

int main(int argc, char const *argv[]) {
   size_t i;
   setenv("MY_NEW_VAR", "new_value", 1);
   if (environ != NULL) {
      for (i = 0; environ[i] != NULL; i++) {
         puts(environ[i]);
      }
   }
   return 0;
}

Note: if you have a great deal of unsafe envp code, you could save time in your remediation by aliasing. Change:

main(int argc, char *argv[], char *envp[])

To:

extern char **environ;
#define envp environ

/* ... */
main(int argc, char *argv[])

Risk Assessment

Using the envp environment pointer after the environment has been modified may result in undefined behavior.

Related Vulnerabilities

Search for vulnerabilities resulting from the violation of this rule on the CERT website.

References

[[ISO/IEC 9899-1999]] Section J.5.1, "Environment Arguments"
[[Open Group 04]] setenv()

ENV30-C. Do not modify the string returned by getenv()      10. Environment (ENV)       ENV32-C. No atexit handler should terminate in any way other than by returning