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Date:      Mon, 21 Apr 2014 03:19:04 +0100
From:      Jamie Landeg-Jones <jamie@dyslexicfish.net>
To:        rwmaillists@googlemail.com, freebsd-security@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: De Raadt + FBSD + OpenSSH + hole?
Message-ID:  <201404210219.s3L2J4r3020038@catnip.dyslexicfish.net>
In-Reply-To: <20140420220037.076be9d0@gumby.homeunix.com>
References:  <534B11F0.9040400@paladin.bulgarpress.com> <201404141207.s3EC7IvT085450@chronos.org.uk> <201404141232.s3ECWFQ1081178@catnip.dyslexicfish.net> <53522186.9030207@FreeBSD.org> <201404200548.s3K5mV7N055244@catnip.dyslexicfish.net> <53540307.1070708@quietfountain.com> <201404201831.s3KIVCSY054778@catnip.dyslexicfish.net> <CADgEyUt1_BiTQhvjzS0%2Bot0hUVNSUMXM8qXki%2B6dZio%2BgWfZgg@mail.gmail.com> <20140420220037.076be9d0@gumby.homeunix.com>

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RW <rwmaillists@googlemail.com> wrote:

> It can return the physical memory, but there are a couple of caveats.
> Firstly, it can only return whole pages. Secondly, it's not returned
> instantaneously to avoid the overhead of page-faults and zeroing pages
> if that region is remalloced. It's left to the page-daemon to recover
> the physical memory in its own time, and it remains readable by it's
> previous process until it's reassigned.

Again, thanks for clearing that up for me. I wasn't all that far
off-base after all, but yours and Nathans replies make sense!

So there is a real world use for calloc after all! (though only as
a bug catching security measure - no sane program should ever read
its memory it hasn't yet written to!)

cheers, jamie




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