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Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2018 15:00:49 -0800
From: Kees Cook <keescook@...omium.org>
To: Carter Cheng <cartercheng@...il.com>
Cc: Kernel Hardening <kernel-hardening@...ts.openwall.com>
Subject: Re: dynamically allocating memory in the kernel

On Wed, Dec 5, 2018 at 12:46 PM Carter Cheng <cartercheng@...il.com> wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> I was wondering if someone here could help me understand something about the kernel for a project I am working on tracking dynamically allocated memory. How many ways are there to dynamically allocate memory in the kernel presently? I know of 4.
>
> get_free_pages family of functions
> kmalloc family (including vmalloc)

vmalloc is quite different from kmalloc (see below).

> slab allocation

kmalloc is a type of slab allocation, so the base parts are the same.

> mempools.
>
> Are there others? I am trying to track them all down so I have comprehensively know when all allocations occur and all "frees".

I would recommend looking at KASAN hooks (which tracks use-after-free)
to see if there are any areas you're missing.

-Kees

-- 
Kees Cook

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