This patch removes a check done by sgl_alloc_order() before it starts any allocations. The comment before the removed code says: "Check for integer overflow" arguably gives a false sense of security. The right hand side of the expression in the condition is resolved as u32 so cannot exceed UINT32_MAX (4 GiB) which means 'length' cannot exceed that amount. If that was the intention then the comment above it could be dropped and the condition rewritten more clearly as: if (length > UINT32_MAX) <<failure path >>; The author's intention is to use sgl_alloc_order() to replace vmalloc(unsigned long) for a large allocation (debug ramdisk). vmalloc has no limit at 4 GiB so its seems unreasonable that: sgl_alloc_order(unsigned long long length, ....) does. sgl_s made with sgl_alloc_order(chainable=false) have equally sized segments placed in a scatter gather array. That allows O(1) navigation around a big sgl using some simple integer maths. Having previously sent a patch to fix a memory leak in sg_alloc_order() take the opportunity to put a one line comment above sgl_free()'s declaration that it is not suitable when order > 0 . The mis-use of sgl_free() when order > 0 was the reason for the memory leak. The other users of sgl_alloc_order() in the kernel where checked and found to handle free-ing properly. Signed-off-by: Douglas Gilbert <dgilbert@xxxxxxxxxxxx> --- include/linux/scatterlist.h | 1 + lib/scatterlist.c | 3 --- 2 files changed, 1 insertion(+), 3 deletions(-) diff --git a/include/linux/scatterlist.h b/include/linux/scatterlist.h index 45cf7b69d852..80178afc2a4a 100644 --- a/include/linux/scatterlist.h +++ b/include/linux/scatterlist.h @@ -302,6 +302,7 @@ struct scatterlist *sgl_alloc(unsigned long long length, gfp_t gfp, unsigned int *nent_p); void sgl_free_n_order(struct scatterlist *sgl, int nents, int order); void sgl_free_order(struct scatterlist *sgl, int order); +/* Only use sgl_free() when order is 0 */ void sgl_free(struct scatterlist *sgl); #endif /* CONFIG_SGL_ALLOC */ diff --git a/lib/scatterlist.c b/lib/scatterlist.c index c448642e0f78..d5770e7f1030 100644 --- a/lib/scatterlist.c +++ b/lib/scatterlist.c @@ -493,9 +493,6 @@ struct scatterlist *sgl_alloc_order(unsigned long long length, u32 elem_len; nent = round_up(length, PAGE_SIZE << order) >> (PAGE_SHIFT + order); - /* Check for integer overflow */ - if (length > (nent << (PAGE_SHIFT + order))) - return NULL; nalloc = nent; if (chainable) { /* Check for integer overflow */ -- 2.25.1