[RFC 0/5] slab: Set freed variables to NULL by default

From: Kees Cook
Date: Fri Mar 21 2025 - 16:41:46 EST


Hi!

This is very much an RFC series, but I wanted to make sure it actually
worked before I proposed it. This series seeks to give kfree() the
side-effect of assigning NULL to the kfree() argument when possible.
This would make a subset of "dangling pointer" flaws turn into NULL
derefs instead of Use-After-Free[1]. It effectively turns:

kfree(var);

into:

kfree(var);
var = NULL;

when "var" is actually addressable. (i.e. not "kfree(get_ptrs())" etc.)

It depends on a builtin, __builtin_is_lvalue(), which is not landed in any
compiler yet, but I do have it working in a Clang patch[2]. This should
be essentially free (pardon the pun), so I think if folks can tolerate
a little bit of renaming needed for when kfree is needed as a function
and not a macro, it should be good. Please let me know what you think.

Thanks!

-Kees

(Yes, I'm still working on the kmalloc_objs() series, but I needed to
take a break from fixing all the allocation corner cases I've found there.)

[1] https://github.com/KSPP/linux/issues/87
[2] https://github.com/kees/llvm-project/commits/builtin_is_lvalue/

Kees Cook (5):
treewide: Replace kfree() casts with union members
treewide: Prepare for kfree() to __kfree() rename
compiler_types: Introduce __is_lvalue()
slab: Set freed variables to NULL by default
[DEBUG] slab: Report number of NULLings

arch/mips/alchemy/common/dbdma.c | 2 +-
include/linux/compiler_types.h | 10 ++++++++++
include/linux/netlink.h | 1 +
include/linux/slab.h | 33 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++--
include/net/pkt_cls.h | 5 ++++-
io_uring/futex.c | 2 +-
io_uring/io_uring.c | 12 ++++++------
kernel/bpf/core.c | 3 ++-
mm/slab_common.c | 12 ++++++++----
mm/slub.c | 6 +++---
net/sched/ematch.c | 2 +-
net/wireless/nl80211.c | 2 +-
12 files changed, 69 insertions(+), 21 deletions(-)

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2.34.1