Re: [PATCH 1/1] perf kwork: Use zfree() to avoid possibly accessing dangling pointers

From: Ian Rogers
Date: Wed May 08 2024 - 19:41:03 EST


On Mon, May 6, 2024 at 8:15 PM <arnaldo.melo@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> When freeing a->b it is good practice to set a->b to NULL using
> zfree(&a->b) so that when we have a bug where a reference to a freed 'a'
> pointer is kept somewhere, we can more quickly cause a segfault if some
> code tries to use a->b.
>
> Convert one such case in the 'perf kwork' codebase.
>
> Cc: Adrian Hunter <adrian.hunter@xxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: Ian Rogers <irogers@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: Jiri Olsa <jolsa@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: Kan Liang <kan.liang@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: Namhyung Kim <namhyung@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: Yang Jihong <yangjihong1@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Signed-off-by: Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo <acme@xxxxxxxxxx>

Reviewed-by: Ian Rogers <irogers@xxxxxxxxxx>

Thanks,
Ian

> ---
> tools/perf/builtin-kwork.c | 2 +-
> 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
>
> diff --git a/tools/perf/builtin-kwork.c b/tools/perf/builtin-kwork.c
> index 0092b9b39611d7e9..56e3f3a5e03a2d66 100644
> --- a/tools/perf/builtin-kwork.c
> +++ b/tools/perf/builtin-kwork.c
> @@ -2230,7 +2230,7 @@ static int perf_kwork__top(struct perf_kwork *kwork)
> perf_kwork__top_report(kwork);
>
> out:
> - free(kwork->top_stat.cpus_runtime);
> + zfree(&kwork->top_stat.cpus_runtime);
> return ret;
> }
>
> --
> 2.44.0
>