+Note that there are two different types of pointers to keys that may be
+encountered:
+
+ (*) struct key *
+
+ This simply points to the key structure itself. Key structures will be at
+ least four-byte aligned.
+
+ (*) key_ref_t
+
+ This is equivalent to a struct key *, but the least significant bit is set
+ if the caller "possesses" the key. By "possession" it is meant that the
+ calling processes has a searchable link to the key from one of its
+ keyrings. There are three functions for dealing with these:
+
+ key_ref_t make_key_ref(const struct key *key,
+ unsigned long possession);
+
+ struct key *key_ref_to_ptr(const key_ref_t key_ref);
+
+ unsigned long is_key_possessed(const key_ref_t key_ref);
+
+ The first function constructs a key reference from a key pointer and
+ possession information (which must be 0 or 1 and not any other value).
+
+ The second function retrieves the key pointer from a reference and the
+ third retrieves the possession flag.
+