diff --git a/include/linux/bitmap.h b/include/linux/bitmap.h
index 1ee46f492267..acf5e8df3504 100644
--- a/include/linux/bitmap.h
+++ b/include/linux/bitmap.h
@@ -104,6 +104,14 @@
  * contain all bit positions from 0 to 'bits' - 1.
  */
 
+/*
+ * Allocation and deallocation of bitmap.
+ * Provided in lib/bitmap.c to avoid circular dependency.
+ */
+extern unsigned long *bitmap_alloc(unsigned int nbits, gfp_t flags);
+extern unsigned long *bitmap_zalloc(unsigned int nbits, gfp_t flags);
+extern void bitmap_free(const unsigned long *bitmap);
+
 /*
  * lib/bitmap.c provides these functions:
  */
diff --git a/lib/bitmap.c b/lib/bitmap.c
index a42eff7e8c48..5b476d8414be 100644
--- a/lib/bitmap.c
+++ b/lib/bitmap.c
@@ -13,6 +13,7 @@
 #include <linux/bitops.h>
 #include <linux/bug.h>
 #include <linux/kernel.h>
+#include <linux/slab.h>
 #include <linux/string.h>
 #include <linux/uaccess.h>
 
@@ -1128,6 +1129,25 @@ void bitmap_copy_le(unsigned long *dst, const unsigned long *src, unsigned int n
 EXPORT_SYMBOL(bitmap_copy_le);
 #endif
 
+unsigned long *bitmap_alloc(unsigned int nbits, gfp_t flags)
+{
+	return kmalloc_array(BITS_TO_LONGS(nbits), sizeof(unsigned long),
+			     flags);
+}
+EXPORT_SYMBOL(bitmap_alloc);
+
+unsigned long *bitmap_zalloc(unsigned int nbits, gfp_t flags)
+{
+	return bitmap_alloc(nbits, flags | __GFP_ZERO);
+}
+EXPORT_SYMBOL(bitmap_zalloc);
+
+void bitmap_free(const unsigned long *bitmap)
+{
+	kfree(bitmap);
+}
+EXPORT_SYMBOL(bitmap_free);
+
 #if BITS_PER_LONG == 64
 /**
  * bitmap_from_arr32 - copy the contents of u32 array of bits to bitmap