On 8/4/20 6:03 am, Waiman Long wrote: > For kvmalloc'ed data object that contains sensitive information like > cryptographic key, we need to make sure that the buffer is always > cleared before freeing it. Using memset() alone for buffer clearing may > not provide certainty as the compiler may compile it away. To be sure, > the special memzero_explicit() has to be used. > > This patch introduces a new kvfree_sensitive() for freeing those > sensitive data objects allocated by kvmalloc(). The relevnat places > where kvfree_sensitive() can be used are modified to use it. > > Fixes: 4f0882491a14 ("KEYS: Avoid false positive ENOMEM error on key read") > Suggested-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> > Signed-off-by: Waiman Long <longman@xxxxxxxxxx> > --- > include/linux/mm.h | 1 + > mm/util.c | 18 ++++++++++++++++++ > security/keys/internal.h | 11 ----------- > security/keys/keyctl.c | 16 +++++----------- > 4 files changed, 24 insertions(+), 22 deletions(-) > > [v3: Fix kerneldoc errors] > > diff --git a/include/linux/mm.h b/include/linux/mm.h > index 7dd5c4ccbf85..9b3130b20f42 100644 > --- a/include/linux/mm.h > +++ b/include/linux/mm.h > @@ -757,6 +757,7 @@ static inline void *kvcalloc(size_t n, size_t size, gfp_t flags) > } > > extern void kvfree(const void *addr); > +extern void kvfree_sensitive(const void *addr, size_t len); > > static inline int compound_mapcount(struct page *page) > { > diff --git a/mm/util.c b/mm/util.c > index 988d11e6c17c..dc1c877d5481 100644 > --- a/mm/util.c > +++ b/mm/util.c > @@ -604,6 +604,24 @@ void kvfree(const void *addr) > } > EXPORT_SYMBOL(kvfree); > > +/** > + * kvfree_sensitive - Free a data object containing sensitive information. > + * @addr: address of the data object to be freed. > + * @len: length of the data object. > + * > + * Use the special memzero_explicit() function to clear the content of a > + * kvmalloc'ed object containing sensitive data to make sure that the > + * compiler won't optimize out the data clearing. > + */ > +void kvfree_sensitive(const void *addr, size_t len) > +{ > + if (likely(!ZERO_OR_NULL_PTR(addr))) { > + memzero_explicit((void *)addr, len); > + kvfree(addr); > + } > +} > +EXPORT_SYMBOL(kvfree_sensitive); > + I wonder if the right thing to do is also to disable pre-emption, just so that the thread does not linger on with sensitive data. void kvfree_sensitive(const void *addr, size_t len) { preempt_disable(); if (likely(!ZERO_OR_NULL_PTR(addr))) { memzero_explicit((void *)addr, len); kvfree(addr); } preempt_enable(); } EXPORT_SYMBOL(kvfree_sensitive); Balbir Singh.