slab: introduce kzfree()

kzfree() is a wrapper for kfree() that additionally zeroes the underlying memory before releasing it to the slab allocator. Currently there is code which memset()s the memory region of an object before releasing it back to the slab allocator to make sure security-sensitive data are really zeroed out after use. These callsites can then just use kzfree() which saves some code, makes users greppable and allows for a stupid destructor that isn't necessarily aware of the actual object size. Signed-off-by: Johannes Weiner <[email protected]> Reviewed-by: Pekka Enberg <[email protected]> Cc: Matt Mackall <[email protected]> Acked-by: Christoph Lameter <[email protected]> Cc: Nick Piggin <[email protected]> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <[email protected]> Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <[email protected]>
dcaratti · Feb 21, 2009 · 3ef0e5b · 3ef0e5b
1 parent d919091
commit 3ef0e5b
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diff --git a/include/linux/slab.h b/include/linux/slab.h
@@ -127,6 +127,7 @@ int kmem_ptr_validate(struct kmem_cache *cachep, const void *ptr);
 void * __must_check __krealloc(const void *, size_t, gfp_t);
 void * __must_check krealloc(const void *, size_t, gfp_t);
 void kfree(const void *);
+void kzfree(const void *);
 size_t ksize(const void *);
 
 /*

diff --git a/mm/util.c b/mm/util.c
@@ -129,6 +129,26 @@ void *krealloc(const void *p, size_t new_size, gfp_t flags)
 }
 EXPORT_SYMBOL(krealloc);
 
+/**
+ * kzfree - like kfree but zero memory
+ * @p: object to free memory of
+ *
+ * The memory of the object @p points to is zeroed before freed.
+ * If @p is %NULL, kzfree() does nothing.
+ */
+void kzfree(const void *p)
+{
+	size_t ks;
+	void *mem = (void *)p;
+
+	if (unlikely(ZERO_OR_NULL_PTR(mem)))
+		return;
+	ks = ksize(mem);
+	memset(mem, 0, ks);
+	kfree(mem);
+}
+EXPORT_SYMBOL(kzfree);
+
 /*
  * strndup_user - duplicate an existing string from user space
  * @s: The string to duplicate