Securing memory allocations

Zeroing memory

void sodium_memzero(void * const pnt, const size_t len);

After use, sensitive data should be overwritten, but memset() and hand-written code can be silently stripped out by an optimizing compiler or by the linker.

The sodium_memzero() function tries to effectively zero len bytes starting at pnt, even if optimizations are being applied to the code.

Locking memory

int sodium_mlock(void * const addr, const size_t len);

The sodium_mlock() function locks at least len bytes of memory starting at addr. This can help avoid swapping sensitive data to disk.

In addition, it is recommended to totally disable swap partitions on machines processing sensitive data, or, as a second choice, use encrypted swap partitions.

For similar reasons, on Unix systems, one should also disable core dumps when running crypto code outside a development environment. This can be achieved using a shell built-in such as ulimit or programatically using setrlimit(RLIMIT_CORE, &(struct rlimit) {0, 0}). On operating systems where this feature is implemented, kernel crash dumps should also be disabled.

sodium_mlock() wraps mlock() and VirtualLock(). Note: Many systems place limits on the amount of memory that may be locked by a process. Care should be taken to raise those limits (e.g. Unix ulimits) where neccessary. sodium_mlock() will return -1 when any limit is reached.

int sodium_munlock(void * const addr, const size_t len);

The sodium_munlock() function should be called after locked memory is not being used any more. It will zero len bytes starting at addr before actually flagging the pages as swappable again. Calling sodium_memzero() prior to sodium_munlock() is thus not required.

On systems where it is supported, sodium_mlock() also wraps madvise() and advises the kernel not to include the locked memory in core dumps. sodium_munlock() also undoes this additional protection.

Guarded heap allocations

Sodium provides heap allocation functions for storing sensitive data.

These are not general-purpose allocation functions. In particular, they are slower than malloc() and friends, and they require 3 or 4 extra pages of virtual memory.

sodium_init() has to be called before using any of the guarded heap allocation functions.

void *sodium_malloc(size_t size);

The sodium_malloc() function returns a pointer from which exactly size contiguous bytes of memory can be accessed. Like normal malloc, NULL may be returned and errno set if it is not possible to allocate enough memory.

The allocated region is placed at the end of a page boundary, immediately followed by a guard page. As a result, accessing memory past the end of the region will immediately terminate the application.

A canary is also placed right before the returned pointer. Modifications of this canary are detected when trying to free the allocated region with sodium_free(), and also cause the application to immediately terminate.

An additional guard page is placed before this canary to make it less likely for sensitive data to be accessible when reading past the end of an unrelated region.

The allocated region is filled with 0xdb bytes in order to help catch bugs due to uninitialized data.

In addition, sodium_mlock() is called on the region to help avoid it being swapped to disk. On operating systems supporting MAP_NOCORE or MADV_DONTDUMP, memory allocated this way will also not be part of core dumps.

The returned address will not be aligned if the allocation size is not a multiple of the required alignment.

For this reason, sodium_malloc() should not be used with packed or variable-length structures, unless the size given to sodium_malloc() is rounded up in order to ensure proper alignment.

All the structures used by libsodium can safely be allocated using sodium_malloc().

Allocating 0 bytes is a valid operation. It returns a pointer that can be successfully passed to sodium_free().

void *sodium_allocarray(size_t count, size_t size);

The sodium_allocarray() function returns a pointer from which count objects that are size bytes of memory each can be accessed.

It provides the same guarantees as sodium_malloc() but also protects against arithmetic overflows when count * size exceeds SIZE_MAX.

void sodium_free(void *ptr);

The sodium_free() function unlocks and deallocates memory allocated using sodium_malloc() or sodium_allocarray().

Prior to this, the canary is checked in order to detect possible buffer underflows and terminate the process if required.

sodium_free() also fills the memory region with zeros before the deallocation.

This function can be called even if the region was previously protected using sodium_mprotect_readonly(); the protection will automatically be changed as needed.

ptr can be NULL, in which case no operation is performed.

int sodium_mprotect_noaccess(void *ptr);

The sodium_mprotect_noaccess() function makes a region allocated using sodium_malloc() or sodium_allocarray() inaccessible. It cannot be read or written, but the data are preserved.

This function can be used to make confidential data inaccessible except when actually needed for a specific operation.

int sodium_mprotect_readonly(void *ptr);

The sodium_mprotect_readonly() function marks a region allocated using sodium_malloc() or sodium_allocarray() as read-only.

Attempting to modify the data will cause the process to terminate.

int sodium_mprotect_readwrite(void *ptr);

The sodium_mprotect_readwrite() function marks a region allocated using sodium_malloc() or sodium_allocarray() as readable and writable, after having been protected using sodium_mprotect_readonly() or sodium_mprotect_noaccess().