id	summary	reporter	owner	description	type	status	milestone	component	version	severity	resolution	keywords	cc
13133	copy_file does not check file type, can fill disk or hang program if used on certain file types	Ryan Patton <rjp2@…>	Beman Dawes	"Boost’s copy_file method, when passed non-regular files, can fill up the user’s disk space or hang the program.

The copy_file method does not check file type before it begins copying, which can lead to unspecified behavior if the user tries to copy a non-regular (type) file. As only regular files can be properly copied by reading and writing their contents, trying to copy non-regular files in this way can cause problems. For example:
- Trying to copy a symlink to the character device /dev/urandom with copy_file will copy random data into the output file indefinitely, quickly filling up the user’s disk. 
- Trying to copy a FIFO type file with copy_file will result in the program hanging indefinitely if left unattended.

This problem can be fixed without too much work by checking the result of the post-open stat call to check that a regular file was opened. I have written up a patch, which I submitted a pull-request for (#48).
This problem was found as part of an effort to detect and deal with “environmental” bugs in popular applications (for more information, check out https://works-everywhere.org). It was found using a tool that detects situations where an application fails to correctly handle unusual environmental conditions such as files having an unexpected file type."	Bugs	new	To Be Determined	filesystem	Boost 1.63.0	Problem		copy_file	pkm266@…