A symmetric naming is only helpful if it implies symmetries in use.
Otherwise it's actively misleading.
In "kzalloc()", the z is meaningful and an important part of what the
caller wants.
In "kzfree()", the z is actively detrimental, because maybe in the
future we really _might_ want to use that "memfill(0xdeadbeef)" or
something. The "zero" part of the interface isn't even _relevant_.
The main reason that kzfree() exists is to clear sensitive information
that should not be leaked to other future users of the same memory
objects.
Rename kzfree() to kfree_sensitive() to follow the example of the recently
added kvfree_sensitive() and make the intention of the API more explicit.
In addition, memzero_explicit() is used to clear the memory to make sure
that it won't get optimized away by the compiler.
The renaming is done by using the command sequence:
git grep -w --name-only kzfree |\
xargs sed -i 's/kzfree/kfree_sensitive/'
followed by some editing of the kfree_sensitive() kerneldoc and adding
a kzfree backward compatibility macro in slab.h.
[akpm@linux-foundation.org: fs/crypto/inline_crypt.c needs linux/slab.h]
[akpm@linux-foundation.org: fix fs/crypto/inline_crypt.c some more]
Suggested-by: Joe Perches <joe@perches.com> Signed-off-by: Waiman Long <longman@redhat.com> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org> Acked-by: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com> Acked-by: Michal Hocko <mhocko@suse.com> Acked-by: Johannes Weiner <hannes@cmpxchg.org> Cc: Jarkko Sakkinen <jarkko.sakkinen@linux.intel.com> Cc: James Morris <jmorris@namei.org> Cc: "Serge E. Hallyn" <serge@hallyn.com> Cc: Joe Perches <joe@perches.com> Cc: Matthew Wilcox <willy@infradead.org> Cc: David Rientjes <rientjes@google.com> Cc: Dan Carpenter <dan.carpenter@oracle.com> Cc: "Jason A . Donenfeld" <Jason@zx2c4.com> Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20200616154311.12314-3-longman@redhat.com Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>