[PATCH 4/4] kmemleak: Allow two scanning passes before reported anobject as leak

From: Catalin Marinas
Date: Mon Oct 19 2009 - 10:49:48 EST


The majority of the transient false positives in kmemleak are caused by
pointers being moved to a data structure after kmemleak scanned it
during a scanning episode. This may cause a false positive report on the
object pointed to by such pointer. This patch simplifies the scanning
algorithm for objects allocated during a scanning episode and instead
requires an object to be found as a leak twice consecutively before
being reported.

Signed-off-by: Catalin Marinas <catalin.marinas@xxxxxxx>
---
mm/kmemleak.c | 77 ++++++++++++++-------------------------------------------
1 files changed, 19 insertions(+), 58 deletions(-)

diff --git a/mm/kmemleak.c b/mm/kmemleak.c
index 998162f..efdd4b5 100644
--- a/mm/kmemleak.c
+++ b/mm/kmemleak.c
@@ -108,7 +108,6 @@
#define MSECS_MIN_AGE 5000 /* minimum object age for reporting */
#define SECS_FIRST_SCAN 60 /* delay before the first scan */
#define SECS_SCAN_WAIT 600 /* subsequent auto scanning delay */
-#define GRAY_LIST_PASSES 25 /* maximum number of gray list scans */
#define MAX_SCAN_SIZE 4096 /* maximum size of a scanned block */
#define MAX_REV_REF 4 /* number of reverse references */

@@ -166,8 +165,8 @@ struct kmemleak_object {
#define OBJECT_REPORTED (1 << 1)
/* flag set to not scan the object */
#define OBJECT_NO_SCAN (1 << 2)
-/* flag set on newly allocated objects */
-#define OBJECT_NEW (1 << 3)
+/* flag set on unreferenced objects during first a scanning pass */
+#define OBJECT_FIRST_PASS (1 << 3)

/* number of bytes to print per line; must be 16 or 32 */
#define HEX_ROW_SIZE 16
@@ -205,9 +204,6 @@ static unsigned long min_addr = ULONG_MAX;
static unsigned long max_addr;

static struct task_struct *scan_thread;
-/* used to avoid reporting of recently allocated objects */
-static unsigned long jiffies_min_age;
-static unsigned long jiffies_last_scan;
/* delay between automatic memory scannings */
static signed long jiffies_scan_wait;
/* enables or disables the task stacks scanning */
@@ -323,21 +319,13 @@ static bool color_gray(const struct kmemleak_object *object)
object->count >= object->min_count;
}

-static bool color_black(const struct kmemleak_object *object)
-{
- return object->min_count == KMEMLEAK_BLACK;
-}
-
/*
- * Objects are considered unreferenced only if their color is white, they have
- * not be deleted and have a minimum age to avoid false positives caused by
- * pointers temporarily stored in CPU registers.
+ * Objects are considered unreferenced only if their color is white and they
+ * have not been deleted.
*/
static bool unreferenced_object(struct kmemleak_object *object)
{
- return (object->flags & OBJECT_ALLOCATED) && color_white(object) &&
- time_before_eq(object->jiffies + jiffies_min_age,
- jiffies_last_scan);
+ return (object->flags & OBJECT_ALLOCATED) && color_white(object);
}

/*
@@ -529,11 +517,11 @@ static struct kmemleak_object *create_object(unsigned long ptr, size_t size,
INIT_HLIST_HEAD(&object->area_list);
spin_lock_init(&object->lock);
atomic_set(&object->use_count, 1);
- object->flags = OBJECT_ALLOCATED | OBJECT_NEW;
+ object->flags = OBJECT_ALLOCATED;
object->pointer = ptr;
object->size = size;
object->min_count = min_count;
- object->count = -1; /* no color initially */
+ object->count = KMEMLEAK_BLACK; /* no white color initially */
object->jiffies = jiffies;

/* task information */
@@ -1100,9 +1088,6 @@ static void kmemleak_scan(void)
struct kmemleak_object *object, *tmp;
int i;
int new_leaks = 0;
- int gray_list_pass = 0;
-
- jiffies_last_scan = jiffies;

/* prepare the kmemleak_object's */
rcu_read_lock();
@@ -1121,7 +1106,6 @@ static void kmemleak_scan(void)
#endif
/* reset the reference count (whiten the object) */
object->count = 0;
- object->flags &= ~OBJECT_NEW;
if (color_gray(object) && get_object(object))
list_add_tail(&object->gray_list, &gray_list);

@@ -1185,7 +1169,6 @@ static void kmemleak_scan(void)
* kmemleak objects cannot be freed from outside the loop because their
* use_count was increased.
*/
-repeat:
object = list_entry(gray_list.next, typeof(*object), gray_list);
while (&object->gray_list != &gray_list) {
cond_resched();
@@ -1203,38 +1186,12 @@ repeat:

object = tmp;
}
-
- if (scan_should_stop() || ++gray_list_pass >= GRAY_LIST_PASSES)
- goto scan_end;
-
- /*
- * Check for new objects allocated during this scanning and add them
- * to the gray list.
- */
- rcu_read_lock();
- list_for_each_entry_rcu(object, &object_list, object_list) {
- spin_lock_irqsave(&object->lock, flags);
- if ((object->flags & OBJECT_NEW) && !color_black(object) &&
- get_object(object)) {
- object->flags &= ~OBJECT_NEW;
- list_add_tail(&object->gray_list, &gray_list);
- }
- spin_unlock_irqrestore(&object->lock, flags);
- }
- rcu_read_unlock();
-
- if (!list_empty(&gray_list))
- goto repeat;
-
-scan_end:
WARN_ON(!list_empty(&gray_list));

/*
- * If scanning was stopped or new objects were being allocated at a
- * higher rate than gray list scanning, do not report any new
- * unreferenced objects.
+ * If scanning was stopped do not report any new unreferenced objects.
*/
- if (scan_should_stop() || gray_list_pass >= GRAY_LIST_PASSES)
+ if (scan_should_stop())
return;

/*
@@ -1243,11 +1200,16 @@ scan_end:
rcu_read_lock();
list_for_each_entry_rcu(object, &object_list, object_list) {
spin_lock_irqsave(&object->lock, flags);
- if (unreferenced_object(object) &&
- !(object->flags & OBJECT_REPORTED)) {
- object->flags |= OBJECT_REPORTED;
- new_leaks++;
- }
+ if (unreferenced_object(object)) {
+ if (!(object->flags & OBJECT_FIRST_PASS))
+ object->flags |= OBJECT_FIRST_PASS;
+ else if (!(object->flags & OBJECT_REPORTED)) {
+ /* previously found as leak, report it */
+ new_leaks++;
+ object->flags |= OBJECT_REPORTED;
+ }
+ } else
+ object->flags &= ~OBJECT_FIRST_PASS;
spin_unlock_irqrestore(&object->lock, flags);
}
rcu_read_unlock();
@@ -1609,7 +1571,6 @@ void __init kmemleak_init(void)
int i;
unsigned long flags;

- jiffies_min_age = msecs_to_jiffies(MSECS_MIN_AGE);
jiffies_scan_wait = msecs_to_jiffies(SECS_SCAN_WAIT * 1000);

object_cache = KMEM_CACHE(kmemleak_object, SLAB_NOLEAKTRACE);

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