ANSI/UNICODE bug in System.Net.HttpListenerRequest

http://www.textboccaelter.com While testing what was the best function to hook in HttpListenerRequest (see Hooking HttpApi.dll's HttpReceiveHttpRequest) I found what I think is a bug in the 2.0 method System.Net.HttpListenerRequest which belongs to the Platform SDK: HTTP API]:

• open System.Net.HttpListenerRequest in reflector
• in the internal unsafe HttpListenerRequest(HttpListenerContext httpContext, RequestContextBase memoryBlob) method look for this:

 if ((memoryBlob.RequestBlob.CookedUrl.pFullUrl != null) && (memoryBlob.RequestBlob.CookedUrl.FullUrlLength > 0))
   {
     this.m_CookedUrl = Marshal.PtrToStringAnsi((IntPtr) memoryBlob.RequestBlob.CookedUrl.pFullUrl, memoryBlob.RequestBlob.CookedUrl.FullUrlLength);
   }

• this.m_CookedUrl is an private string m_CookedUrl;
• and memoryBlob.RequestBlob.CookedUrl.pFullUrl is an internal unsafe ushort* pFullUrl; (i.e. a pointer).
• If we look at the unmanaged definitions ( see Hooking HttpApi.dll's HttpReceiveHttpRequest) we have:
  • HttpReceiveHttpRequest ->
    • _HTTP_REQUEST pRequestBuffer ->
      • HTTP_COOKED_URL CookedUrl ->
        • PCWSTR pFullUrl

• The problem is that unManaged version of pFullUrl is in Unicode format, where the BCL version handles it as it was ASCII

• I noticed this problem because System.Net.HttpListenerRequest.m_cookedUrl, had a value of "h\0t\0t\0p\0:\0/\0/\0l\0o\0c\0a\0l\0h\0o\0s\0t\0:\08\00\09\00\0/" which if you remove the \0 is "http://localhost:8090/"

• Looking at the definition of Marshal.PtrToStringAnsi in MSDN we see that there are two definitions of Marshal.PtrToStringAnsi Method (HttpReceiveHttpRequest uses the second one)
  • public static string PtrToStringAnsi(IntPtr); Copies all characters up to the first null from an unmanaged ANSI string to a managed String. Widens each ANSI character to Unicode.
  • public static string PtrToStringAnsi(IntPtr, int); Allocates a managed String, copies a specified number of characters from an unmanaged ANSI string into it, and widens each ANSI character to Unicode.

• The source code of public static string PtrToStringAnsi(IntPtr); is (using reflector):

[SecurityPermission(SecurityAction.LinkDemand, Flags=SecurityPermissionFlag.UnmanagedCode)]
public static string PtrToStringAnsi(IntPtr ptr)
{
  if (Win32Native.NULL == ptr)
  {
     return null;
  }
  if (Marshal.IsWin32Atom(ptr))
  {
     return null;
  }
  int num1 = Win32Native.lstrlenA(ptr);
  if (num1 == 0)
  {
     return string.Empty;
  }
  StringBuilder builder1 = new StringBuilder(num1);
  Win32Native.CopyMemoryAnsi(builder1, ptr, new IntPtr(1 + num1));
  return builder1.ToString();
}

• The source code of public static string PtrToStringAnsi(IntPtr, int); (using reflector) is:

[MethodImpl(MethodImplOptions.InternalCall), SecurityPermission(SecurityAction.LinkDemand, Flags=SecurityPermissionFlag.UnmanagedCode)]
public static extern string PtrToStringAnsi(IntPtr ptr, int len);

• we see that it is an internalCall method ("MethodImplOptions.InternalCall" is used to declare a method in managed code that has no managed implementation. The implementation (unmanaged) is supplied by the runtime itself (CLR)):

• Since we don't have the source code of the CLR and the 2.0 version of Rotor, I had to look at Rotor's version 1.1 where I found (using CodeScoping's cool feature for searching text in files:) ) inside (\sscli\clr\src\vm\comndirect.cpp) this:

* PInvoke.PtrToStringAnsi()
*/
FCIMPL2(Object*, PtrToStringAnsi, LPVOID ptr, INT32 len)
{
               STRINGREF pString = NULL;
               HELPER_METHOD_FRAME_BEGIN_RET_ATTRIB_1(Frame::FRAME_ATTR_RETURNOBJ, pString);
               //-[autocvtpro]-------------------------------------------------------
               THROWSCOMPLUSEXCEPTION();
               if (ptr == NULL)
                   COMPlusThrowArgumentNull(L"ptr");
               if (len < 0)
                   COMPlusThrowNonLocalized(kArgumentException, L"len");
               int nwc = 0;
               if (len != 0) {

                   nwc = MultiByteToWideChar(CP_ACP,MB_PRECOMPOSED,(LPCSTR)(ptr),len,NULL,0);
                   if (nwc == 0)COMPlusThrow(kArgumentException, IDS_UNI2ANSI_FAILURE);

               }
               pString = COMString::NewString(nwc);
               MultiByteToWideChar(CP_ACP,MB_PRECOMPOSED,(LPCSTR)(ptr),len,pString->GetBuffer(),nwc);
               //-[autocvtepi]-------------------------------------------------------
               HELPER_METHOD_FRAME_END();
               return OBJECTREFToObject(pString);
}
FCIMPLEND

• In summary:
  • The problem is in here:

internal unsafe HttpListenerRequest(HttpListenerContext httpContext, RequestContextBase memoryBlob)
{
   ....
       if ((memoryBlob.RequestBlob.CookedUrl.pFullUrl != null) && (memoryBlob.RequestBlob.CookedUrl.FullUrlLength > 0))
       {
           this.m_CookedUrl = Marshal.PtrToStringAnsi((IntPtr) memoryBlob.RequestBlob.CookedUrl.pFullUrl, memoryBlob.RequestBlob.CookedUrl.FullUrlLength)  
       }
   ....
}

• • since it should be Marshal.PtrToStringUni and not Marshal.PtrToStringAnsi

Note1: as far as I can tell m_CookedUrl is only used here:

private System.Net.HttpListenerRequest.Uri get_RequestUri()

{
       ....
       if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(this.m_CookedUrl))
       {
           flag1 = Uri.TryCreate(this.m_CookedUrl, UriKind.Absolute, out this.m_RequestUri);
       }
       ....
}

Which probably explains why this was not picked up by the MS .Net team (i.e. No aparent side effects)

Note2: using the detoured HttpReceiveHttpRequest I changed the contents of (*pRequestBuffer).CookedUrl.pFullUrl to

StringCbPrintfA((STRSAFE_LPSTR)(*pRequestBuffer).CookedUrl.pFullUrl,30,"http://localhost:8090/Test.aspx");

and I got “http://localhost:8090/Test.aspx*&(&(^(^(*&(*&(*&” (i.e. The original ANSI string + strlen(original ANSI string) chars) in System.Net.HttpListenerRequest.m_CookedUrl (which shows that the original assumption was that (*pRequestBuffer).CookedUrl.pFullUrl should have an ANSI string.