Kernel zeroes memory?

Question

I am using Debian squeeze and have noticed that memory is always zeroed. Is this new in linux distributions ? Some time ago, I believe I could use puts() and garbage would b

Answer 1

From what I read in Linux Kernel Development, the kernel does zero pages because it may contain kernel data that a user program could interpret and some way gain access to the system.

malloc asks the kernel for more pages, so the kernel is responsible for that memory that you are receiving.