Re: [PATCH 3/3] hp-wmi: move from kmalloc to kzalloc

["Ilpo Järvinen" <ilpo.jarvinen@linux.intel.com>]

On Sun, 12 Jul 2026, yahia wrote:

kzalloc()

> From: yahia ahmed <yahia.a.abdrabou@gmail.com>
> 
> hp_wmi_query_perform() currently uses kmalloc to allocate memory for the

kmalloc()

> bios's response, though this creates a security hole pointed out by

BIOS

When you (or you as an extension of sashiko) claim "security hole", you 
must explain that one out how it materializes. Otherwise, I'll reject the 
patch on the ground of unsubstanciated claim in the changelog.

That being said, it is generally useful to avoid kmalloc() but that's 
different reasoning.

> sashiko that when using kmalloc, it won't zero out the memory space, thus

kmalloc()

> leaving information like passwords and other important data.

I thought we had special functions for handling sensitive data such 
as passwords. Yeah, right, there's kfree_sensitive().

I think it would be better to drop the entire thus ... part.

-- 
 i.

> 
> Reported-by: sashiko-bot@kernel.org
> Link: https://sashiko.dev/#/message/20260706143855.35002-1-yahia.a.abdrabou%40gmail.com
> Fixes: 4b4967cbd268 ("platform/x86: hp-wmi: Changing bios_args.data to be dynamically allocated")
> Signed-off-by: yahia ahmed <yahia.a.abdrabou@gmail.com>
> ---
>  drivers/platform/x86/hp/hp-wmi.c | 2 +-
>  1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
> 
> diff --git a/drivers/platform/x86/hp/hp-wmi.c b/drivers/platform/x86/hp/hp-wmi.c
> index 3235ade2fa98..f120900f536d 100644
> --- a/drivers/platform/x86/hp/hp-wmi.c
> +++ b/drivers/platform/x86/hp/hp-wmi.c
> @@ -593,7 +593,7 @@ static int hp_wmi_perform_query(int query, enum hp_wmi_command command,
>  
>  	actual_insize = max(insize, 128);
>  	bios_args_size = struct_size(args, data, actual_insize);
> -	args = kmalloc(bios_args_size, GFP_KERNEL);
> +	args = kzalloc(bios_args_size, GFP_KERNEL);
>  	if (!args)
>  		return -ENOMEM;
>  
>