linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] mm: Add kvfree_sensitive() for freeing sensitive data objects

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Date:   Mon, 06 Apr 2020 18:51:37 +0100
From:   David Howells <dhowells@...hat.com>
To:     Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>
Cc:     dhowells@...hat.com, Joe Perches <joe@...ches.com>,
        Waiman Long <longman@...hat.com>,
        Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
        Jarkko Sakkinen <jarkko.sakkinen@...ux.intel.com>,
        James Morris <jmorris@...ei.org>,
        "Serge E. Hallyn" <serge@...lyn.com>,
        Linux-MM <linux-mm@...ck.org>, keyrings@...r.kernel.org,
        Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] mm: Add kvfree_sensitive() for freeing sensitive data objects

Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org> wrote:

> > Add yet another alloc flag like __GFP_SENSITIVE
> > and have kfree operate on that and not have a
> > kfree_sensitive at all.
> 
> That sounds potentially sensible. Maybe even a SLAB_SENSITIVE to mark
> a whole slab cache sensitive for kmem_cache_create().

The allocation might be by vmalloc rather than kmalloc.  I'm not sure if that
makes things more difficult.

David