The kzfree() function is normally used to clear some sensitive information, like encryption keys, in the buffer before freeing it back to the pool. Memset() is currently used for the buffer clearing. However, it is entirely possible that the compiler may choose to optimize away the memory clearing especially if LTO is being used. To make sure that this optimization will not happen, memzero_explicit(), which is introduced in v3.18, is now used in kzfree() to do the clearing.
Fixes: 3ef0e5ba4673 ("slab: introduce kzfree()") Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org Signed-off-by: Waiman Long longman@redhat.com --- mm/slab_common.c | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
diff --git a/mm/slab_common.c b/mm/slab_common.c index 9e72ba224175..37d48a56431d 100644 --- a/mm/slab_common.c +++ b/mm/slab_common.c @@ -1726,7 +1726,7 @@ void kzfree(const void *p) if (unlikely(ZERO_OR_NULL_PTR(mem))) return; ks = ksize(mem); - memset(mem, 0, ks); + memzero_explicit(mem, ks); kfree(mem); } EXPORT_SYMBOL(kzfree);