[Bug 1807797] [NEW] Split doesn't check for filetype

[Maliat Manzur]

Public bug reported:

Hello! I noticed that Split doesn't check for filetypes before it starts
splitting the file. As a result, it's possible to eat up CPU and Disk
memory by passing in a character device as input. I wanted to make Split
more robust by adding a patch to check for file type.

This patch do break some of the tests for Split. The tests that are
checking Split's ability to "elide empty files" by using /dev/null as
input fail with this patch, since /dev/null is a character device. I
would love to modify those tests to use a regular empty file, upon the
approval of this patch.

Thanks!

** Affects: coreutils (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: New


** Tags: filetype patch split

** Patch added: "Patch checks for filetype."
   https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1807797/+attachment/5220988/+files/split_filetype.patch

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1807797

Title:
  Split doesn't check for filetype

Status in coreutils package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  Hello! I noticed that Split doesn't check for filetypes before it
  starts splitting the file. As a result, it's possible to eat up CPU
  and Disk memory by passing in a character device as input. I wanted to
  make Split  more robust by adding a patch to check for file type.

  This patch do break some of the tests for Split. The tests that are
  checking Split's ability to "elide empty files" by using /dev/null as
  input fail with this patch, since /dev/null is a character device. I
  would love to modify those tests to use a regular empty file, upon the
  approval of this patch.

  Thanks!

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