the certificate manger object is frequently input as a void*

[DrKatieL]

Version

latest master

Description

While this issue is not a bug, using a void* instead of a typed object in function calls effectively removes pointer compatibility checks when using the library increasing the chance of a user of WolfSSL creating a bug. There are 10 functions I found in asn.c by grepping for "void *cm". These are mostly related to wc_ParseCert.

[dgarske]

Hi Katie,

Thank you for the suggestion. I understand your concern on this. There is historical reasons for it since the CertificateManager is part of the TLS layer (not wolfCrypt) so we had to create an opaque type. I will do some investigation and see if there is any way to improve this, but it would be part of a larger certificate manager refactor.

Thanks,
David Garske, wolfSSL

[DrKatieL]

David,
It may be possible to do a replace all on the names of the current API calls that are opaque to mark them as internal then create wrapper which is typed with the original names. It's not necessarily a long term solution but it would improve the safety of the code while you refactor. This would, of course, require testing with the other Wolf codebases. (It may necessitate a check for a version match in the build system if external code relies on the opaque type. The issue would only be with a new WolfSSL and older calling code, which is usually an easier fix.)