Segfault Via Resource Exhaustion

[pabstersac]

BPO	27537
Nosy	@ned-deily

^{Note: these values reflect the state of the issue at the time it was migrated and might not reflect the current state.}

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GitHub fields:

assignee = None
closed_at = <Date 2016-07-17.06:29:51.184>
created_at = <Date 2016-07-17.06:02:28.983>
labels = ['invalid']
title = 'Segfault Via Resource Exhaustion'
updated_at = <Date 2016-07-17.06:29:51.182>
user = 'https://bugs.python.org/pabstersac'

bugs.python.org fields:

activity = <Date 2016-07-17.06:29:51.182>
actor = 'ned.deily'
assignee = 'none'
closed = True
closed_date = <Date 2016-07-17.06:29:51.184>
closer = 'ned.deily'
components = []
creation = <Date 2016-07-17.06:02:28.983>
creator = 'pabstersac'
dependencies = []
files = []
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 27537
keywords = []
message_count = 2.0
messages = ['270611', '270614']
nosy_count = 2.0
nosy_names = ['ned.deily', 'pabstersac']
pr_nums = []
priority = 'normal'
resolution = 'not a bug'
stage = 'resolved'
status = 'closed'
superseder = None
type = None
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue27537'
versions = ['Python 2.7']

[pabstersac]

The code is very simple:
import sys
sys.setrecursionlimit(1<<20)
test=lambda test:test(test)
test(test)

It basically works by changing the recursion limit and then starting an infinite recursion, this quickly gives a segfault.
This can be used to crash python.

[ned-deily]

Sorry, the documentation for sys.setrecursionlimit() explicitly warns you against doing this:

"The highest possible limit is platform-dependent. A user may need to set the limit higher when she has a program that requires deep recursion and a platform that supports a higher limit. This should be done with care, because a too-high limit can lead to a crash."

https://docs.python.org/2.7/library/sys.html#sys.setrecursionlimit