[PATCH v2 07/11] transport-helper: check dup() return in get_exporter

"Johannes Schindelin via GitGitGadget" <[email protected]> Wed, 05 Aug 2026 18:30:56 +0000
Newsgroups org.kernel.vger.git
Message-ID <0facb9e8cabc739cf05829934fb2399ed9a58259.1785954661.git.gitgitgadget@gmail.com>
From: Johannes Schindelin <[email protected]>

get_exporter() duplicates helper->in via dup() and stores the
result in fastexport->out. If dup() fails (fd exhaustion), it
returns -1. The child_process machinery interprets out = -1 as
"create a pipe for stdout", which would silently change the
fast-export process's output wiring: instead of sending data
back through the helper's input fd, it would write to a new pipe
that nobody reads from.

Check the return value and report the error before proceeding.

Pointed out by Coverity.

Assisted-by: Claude Opus 4.6
Signed-off-by: Johannes Schindelin <[email protected]>
---
 transport-helper.c | 2 ++
 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+)

diff --git a/transport-helper.c b/transport-helper.c
index 80f90eb7ba..31883b244e 100644
--- a/transport-helper.c
+++ b/transport-helper.c
@@ -487,6 +487,8 @@ static int get_exporter(struct transport *transport,
 	/* we need to duplicate helper->in because we want to use it after
 	 * fastexport is done with it. */
 	fastexport->out = dup(helper->in);
+	if (fastexport->out < 0)
+		return error_errno(_("could not dup helper output fd"));
 	strvec_push(&fastexport->args, "fast-export");
 	strvec_push(&fastexport->args, "--use-done-feature");
 	strvec_push(&fastexport->args, data->signed_tags ?
-- 
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