package vault import ( "crypto/rand" "fmt" ) // memzero is used to zero out a byte buffer. This specific format is optimized // by the compiler to use memclr to improve performance. See this code review: // https://codereview.appspot.com/137880043 // // Use of memzero is not a guarantee against memory analysis as described in // the Vault threat model: // https://www.vaultproject.io/docs/internals/security.html . Vault does not // provide guarantees against memory analysis or raw memory dumping by // operators, however it does minimize this exposure by zeroing out buffers // that contain secrets as soon as they are no longer used. Starting with Go // 1.5, the garbage collector was changed to become a "generational copying // garbage collector." This change to the garbage collector makes it // impossible for Vault to guarantee a buffer with a secret has not been // copied during a garbage collection. It is therefore possible that secrets // may be exist in memory that have not been wiped despite a pending memzero // call. Over time any copied data with a secret will be reused and the // memory overwritten thereby mitigating some of the risk from this threat // vector. func memzero(b []byte) { if b == nil { return } for i := range b { b[i] = 0 } } // randbytes is used to create a buffer of size n filled with random bytes func randbytes(n int) []byte { buf := make([]byte, n) if _, err := rand.Read(buf); err != nil { panic(fmt.Sprintf("failed to generate %d random bytes: %v", n, err)) } return buf }