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Date: Fri, 17 May 2019 14:59:16 +0200
From: Michal Hocko <mhocko@...nel.org>
To: Alexander Potapenko <glider@...gle.com>
Cc: akpm@...ux-foundation.org, cl@...ux.com, keescook@...omium.org,
kernel-hardening@...ts.openwall.com,
Masahiro Yamada <yamada.masahiro@...ionext.com>,
James Morris <jmorris@...ei.org>,
"Serge E. Hallyn" <serge@...lyn.com>,
Nick Desaulniers <ndesaulniers@...gle.com>,
Kostya Serebryany <kcc@...gle.com>,
Dmitry Vyukov <dvyukov@...gle.com>,
Sandeep Patil <sspatil@...roid.com>,
Laura Abbott <labbott@...hat.com>,
Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@...radead.org>, Jann Horn <jannh@...gle.com>,
Mark Rutland <mark.rutland@....com>,
Souptick Joarder <jrdr.linux@...il.com>,
Matthew Wilcox <willy@...radead.org>, linux-mm@...ck.org,
linux-security-module@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH v2 3/4] gfp: mm: introduce __GFP_NO_AUTOINIT
[It would be great to keep people involved in the previous version in the
CC list]
On Tue 14-05-19 16:35:36, Alexander Potapenko wrote:
> When passed to an allocator (either pagealloc or SL[AOU]B),
> __GFP_NO_AUTOINIT tells it to not initialize the requested memory if the
> init_on_alloc boot option is enabled. This can be useful in the cases
> newly allocated memory is going to be initialized by the caller right
> away.
>
> __GFP_NO_AUTOINIT doesn't affect init_on_free behavior, except for SLOB,
> where init_on_free implies init_on_alloc.
>
> __GFP_NO_AUTOINIT basically defeats the hardening against information
> leaks provided by init_on_alloc, so one should use it with caution.
>
> This patch also adds __GFP_NO_AUTOINIT to alloc_pages() calls in SL[AOU]B.
> Doing so is safe, because the heap allocators initialize the pages they
> receive before passing memory to the callers.
I still do not like the idea of a new gfp flag as explained in the
previous email. People will simply use it incorectly or arbitrarily.
We have that juicy experience from the past.
Freeing a memory is an opt-in feature and the slab allocator can already
tell many (with constructor or GFP_ZERO) do not need it.
So can we go without this gfp thing and see whether somebody actually
finds a performance problem with the feature enabled and think about
what can we do about it rather than add this maint. nightmare from the
very beginning?
--
Michal Hocko
SUSE Labs
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