Re: [RFC PATCH] mm: sort kmemleak object via backtrace

[Catalin Marinas]

On Tue, Sep 27, 2022 at 03:42:50PM +0800, zhaoyang.huang wrote:
> From: Zhaoyang Huang <zhaoyang.huang@xxxxxxxxxx>
> 
> Kmemleak objects are reported each which could produce lot of redundant
> backtrace informations. introduce a set of method to establish a hash
> tree to sort the objects according to backtrace.
> 
> results:
> [  579.075111]c6 [ T5491] kmemleak: unreferenced object 0xffffff80badd9e00 (size 128):
> [  579.082734]c6 [ T5491] kmemleak:   comm "swapper/0", pid 1, jiffies 4294892470
> [  579.096837]c6 [ T5491] kmemleak: unreferenced object 0xffffff80badd9d00 (size 128):
> [  579.104435]c6 [ T5491] kmemleak:   comm "swapper/0", pid 1, jiffies 4294892470
> [  579.118563]c6 [ T5491] kmemleak: unreferenced object 0xffffff80baddce80 (size 128):
> [  579.126201]c6 [ T5491] kmemleak:   comm "swapper/0", pid 1, jiffies 4294892470
> [  579.140303]c6 [ T5491] kmemleak: unreferenced object 0xffffff80baddcb00 (size 128):
> [  579.147906]c6 [ T5491] kmemleak:   comm "swapper/0", pid 1, jiffies 4294892470
> [  579.162032]c6 [ T5491] kmemleak: unreferenced object 0xffffff80bae74a80 (size 128):
> [  579.169661]c6 [ T5491] kmemleak:   comm "swapper/0", pid 1, jiffies 4294892470
> [  579.183775]c6 [ T5491] kmemleak: unreferenced object 0xffffff80bae74100 (size 128):
> [  579.191374]c6 [ T5491] kmemleak:   comm "swapper/0", pid 1, jiffies 4294892471
> [  579.205486]c6 [ T5491] kmemleak: unreferenced object 0xffffff80bae75880 (size 128):
> [  579.213127]c6 [ T5491] kmemleak:   comm "swapper/0", pid 1, jiffies 4294892471
> [  579.227743]c6 [ T5491] kmemleak:   backtrace:
> [  579.232109]c6 [ T5491] kmemleak:     [<0000000066492d96>] __kmalloc_track_caller+0x1d4/0x3e0
> [  579.240506]c6 [ T5491] kmemleak:     [<00000000e5400df8>] kstrdup_const+0x6c/0xa4
> [  579.247930]c6 [ T5491] kmemleak:     [<00000000d7843951>] __kernfs_new_node+0x5c/0x1dc
> [  579.255830]c6 [ T5491] kmemleak:     [<0000000073b5a7bd>] kernfs_new_node+0x60/0xc4
> [  579.263436]c6 [ T5491] kmemleak:     [<000000002c7a48d5>] __kernfs_create_file+0x60/0xfc
> [  579.271485]c6 [ T5491] kmemleak:     [<00000000260ae4a1>] cgroup_addrm_files+0x244/0x4b0
> [  579.279534]c6 [ T5491] kmemleak:     [<00000000ec6bce51>] css_populate_dir+0xb4/0x13c
> [  579.287324]c6 [ T5491] kmemleak:     [<000000005913d698>] cgroup_mkdir+0x1e0/0x31c
> [  579.294859]c6 [ T5491] kmemleak:     [<0000000052605ead>] kernfs_iop_mkdir.llvm.8836999160598622324+0xb0/0x168
> [  579.304817]c6 [ T5491] kmemleak:     [<0000000009665bc4>] vfs_mkdir+0xec/0x170
> [  579.311990]c6 [ T5491] kmemleak:     [<000000003c9c94c1>] do_mkdirat+0xa4/0x168
> [  579.319279]c6 [ T5491] kmemleak:     [<000000005dd5be19>] __arm64_sys_mkdirat+0x28/0x38
> [  579.327242]c6 [ T5491] kmemleak:     [<000000005a0b9381>] el0_svc_common+0xb4/0x188
> [  579.334868]c6 [ T5491] kmemleak:     [<0000000063586a51>] el0_svc_handler+0x2c/0x3c
> [  579.342472]c6 [ T5491] kmemleak:     [<00000000edfd67aa>] el0_svc+0x8/0x100

I'm not convinced it's worth the complexity. Yes, it looks nicer, but if
you have so many leaks they'd not go unnoticed and get fixed relatively
quickly.

One thing I liked about the kmemleak traces is that they are shown in
the order they were allocated. On many occasions, one leak (or false
positive) leaks to another, so it's easier to track them down if you
start with the first. Is the order preserved with your patch?

-- 
Catalin