[PATCH 4/4] perf libbfd: Fix memory leaks and NULL fclose in BPF disassembly

From: Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo

Date: Sun Aug 02 2026 - 10:32:01 EST


From: Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo <acme@xxxxxxxxxx>

symbol__disassemble_bpf_libbfd() has four resource management bugs:

1. free(prog_linfo) leaks internal arrays. bpf_prog_linfo contains
raw_linfo, raw_jited_linfo, nr_jited_linfo_per_func, and
jited_linfo_func_idx pointers that are only freed by the proper
destructor bpf_prog_linfo__free().

2. open_memstream(&buf, &buf_size) allocates a dynamic buffer that the
caller must free after fclose(). The function calls fclose(s) but
never free(buf), leaking the stream buffer on every call.

3. args->line = strdup(srcline) is immediately consumed by
disasm_line__new(args) which internally calls strdup(args->line)
again via annotation_line__init(). The first strdup result is then
overwritten by args->line = buf + prev_buf_size without being freed.

4. If open_memstream() fails, the error path jumps to 'out:' which
calls fclose(s) with s == NULL — undefined behavior.

Fix by using bpf_prog_linfo__free(), initializing buf to NULL, adding
free(buf) after fclose(s), guarding fclose() against NULL, and removing
the redundant strdup since annotation_line__init() makes its own copy.

Fixes: 6987561c9e86eace ("perf annotate: Enable annotation of BPF programs")
Reported-by: sashiko-bot <sashiko-bot@xxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Song Liu <songliubraving@xxxxxx>
Cc: Ian Rogers <irogers@xxxxxxxxxx>
Assisted-by: Claude:claude-opus-4.6
Signed-off-by: Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo <acme@xxxxxxxxxx>
---
tools/perf/util/libbfd.c | 12 ++++++++----
1 file changed, 8 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)

diff --git a/tools/perf/util/libbfd.c b/tools/perf/util/libbfd.c
index 0b7164f0e9fdbbed..33dc6158b2b1ffab 100644
--- a/tools/perf/util/libbfd.c
+++ b/tools/perf/util/libbfd.c
@@ -15,6 +15,7 @@
#ifdef HAVE_LIBBPF_SUPPORT
#include <bpf/bpf.h>
#include <bpf/btf.h>
+#include <bpf/libbpf.h>
#endif
#include <fcntl.h>
#include <stdio.h>
@@ -510,7 +511,7 @@ int symbol__disassemble_bpf_libbfd(struct symbol *sym __maybe_unused,
char tpath[PATH_MAX];
size_t buf_size;
int nr_skip = 0;
- char *buf;
+ char *buf = NULL;
bfd *bfdf;
int ret;
FILE *s;
@@ -620,7 +621,7 @@ int symbol__disassemble_bpf_libbfd(struct symbol *sym __maybe_unused,

if (!annotate_opts.hide_src_code && srcline) {
args->offset = -1;
- args->line = strdup(srcline);
+ args->line = (char *)srcline;
args->line_nr = 0;
args->fileloc = NULL;
args->ms->sym = sym;
@@ -645,9 +646,12 @@ int symbol__disassemble_bpf_libbfd(struct symbol *sym __maybe_unused,

ret = 0;
out:
- free(prog_linfo);
+ bpf_prog_linfo__free(prog_linfo);
btf__free(btf);
- fclose(s);
+ if (s) {
+ fclose(s);
+ free(buf);
+ }
bfd_close(bfdf);
return ret;
#else
--
2.55.0