Re: [PATCH] mm: kmemleak: Treat vm_struct as alternative reference to vmalloc'ed objects

[Catalin Marinas]

On Tue, May 23, 2017 at 10:37:00PM +0200, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:
> On Mon, May 22, 2017 at 06:35:14PM +0100, Catalin Marinas wrote:
> > Kmemleak requires that vmalloc'ed objects have a minimum reference count
> > of 2: one in the corresponding vm_struct object and the other owned by
> > the vmalloc() caller. There are cases, however, where the original
> > vmalloc() returned pointer is lost and, instead, a pointer to vm_struct
> > is stored (see free_thread_stack()). Kmemleak currently reports such
> > objects as leaks.
> > 
> > This patch adds support for treating any surplus references to an object
> > as additional references to a specified object. It introduces the
> > kmemleak_vmalloc() API function which takes a vm_struct pointer and sets
> > its surplus reference passing to the actual vmalloc() returned pointer.
> > The __vmalloc_node_range() calling site has been modified accordingly.
> > 
> > An unrelated minor change is included in this patch to change the type
> > of kmemleak_object.flags to unsigned int (previously unsigned long).
> > 
> > Reported-by: "Luis R. Rodriguez" <mcgrof@xxxxxxxxxx>
> 
> Tested-by: Luis R. Rodriguez <mcgrof@xxxxxxxxxx>

Thanks.

> > diff --git a/mm/kmemleak.c b/mm/kmemleak.c
> > index 20036d4f9f13..11ab654502fd 100644
> > --- a/mm/kmemleak.c
> > +++ b/mm/kmemleak.c
> > @@ -1188,6 +1249,30 @@ static bool update_checksum(struct kmemleak_object *object)
> >  }
> >  
> >  /*
> > + * Update an object's references. object->lock must be held by the caller.
> > + */
> > +static void update_refs(struct kmemleak_object *object)
> > +{
> > +	if (!color_white(object)) {
> > +		/* non-orphan, ignored or new */
> > +		return;
> > +	}
> > +
> > +	/*
> > +	 * Increase the object's reference count (number of pointers to the
> > +	 * memory block). If this count reaches the required minimum, the
> > +	 * object's color will become gray and it will be added to the
> > +	 * gray_list.
> > +	 */
> > +	object->count++;
> > +	if (color_gray(object)) {
> > +		/* put_object() called when removing from gray_list */
> > +		WARN_ON(!get_object(object));
> > +		list_add_tail(&object->gray_list, &gray_list);
> > +	}
> > +}
> > +
> > +/*
> 
> This an initial use of it seems to be very possible and likely without the
> vmalloc special case, ie, can this be added as a separate patch to make the
> actual functional change easier to read ?

The above is just moving code from scan_block() into a separate
function. But I'm happy to split this patch into 2-3 patches if it's
easier to follow.

-- 
Catalin