Re: [PATCH] ext4: Fix memory leak in groupinfo cache name

From: Matt Mackall
Date: Mon Nov 22 2010 - 12:05:23 EST


On Mon, 2010-11-22 at 08:47 +0200, Pekka Enberg wrote:
> On 11/22/10 12:02 AM, zeng.zhaoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> > From: Zeng Zhaoming<zengzm.kernel@xxxxxxxxx>
> >
> > please check the discuss with allocator guys.
> > http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=129004890020256&w=2
> >
> > Get a memory leak about ext4:
> > comm "mount", pid 1159, jiffies 4294904647 (age 6077.804s)
> > hex dump (first 32 bytes):
> > 65 78 74 34 5f 67 72 6f 75 70 69 6e 66 6f 5f 31 ext4_groupinfo_1
> > 30 00 6b 6b 6b 6b 6b 6b 6b 6b 6b 6b 6b 6b 6b a5 0.kkkkkkkkkkkkk.
> > backtrace:
> > [<c068ade3>] kmemleak_alloc+0x93/0xd0
> > [<c024e54c>] __kmalloc_track_caller+0x30c/0x380
> > [<c02269d3>] kstrdup+0x33/0x60
> > [<c0318a70>] ext4_mb_init+0x4e0/0x550
> > [<c0304e0e>] ext4_fill_super+0x1e6e/0x2f60
> > [<c0261140>] mount_bdev+0x1c0/0x1f0
> > [<c02fc00f>] ext4_mount+0x1f/0x30
> > [<c02603d8>] vfs_kern_mount+0x78/0x250
> > [<c026060e>] do_kern_mount+0x3e/0x100
> > [<c027b4c2>] do_mount+0x2e2/0x780
> > [<c027ba04>] sys_mount+0xa4/0xd0
> > [<c010429f>] sysenter_do_call+0x12/0x38
> > [<ffffffff>] 0xffffffff
> >
> > ext4 allocate memory for cache name by:
> > namep = kstrdup(name, GFP_KERNEL);
> > and reclaim it by:
> > name = kmem_cache_name(cache);
> > kfree(name)
> >
> > This is ok if allocator only reference to the cache name memory, and return
> > the name memory pass to kmem_cache_create() by kmem_cache_name();
> > But not true in slub, when using slub, memory leak and double free error appears.
> >
> > In this patch, we track the cache name memory in ext4, rather than allocator.
> >
> > Signed-off-by: Zeng Zhaoming<zengzm.kernel@xxxxxxxxx>
> > ---
>
> Hmm. Maybe it's better to change SLAB and SLOB to do kstrdup()
> internally so we can drop it from ext4 code. Matt, are you OK with that?

If we drop the kmem_cache_name interface, then SLOB can drop tracking
the name entirely.

--
Mathematics is the supreme nostalgia of our time.


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