* [merged mm-stable] mm-kmemleak-report-leaks-only-after-n-consecutive-unreferenced-scans.patch removed from -mm tree
@ 2026-08-25 1:55 Andrew Morton
0 siblings, 0 replies; only message in thread
From: Andrew Morton @ 2026-08-25 1:55 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: mm-commits, vbabka, surenb, shuah, rppt, mhocko, ljs, liam, geert,
david, corbet, catalin.marinas, leitao, akpm
The quilt patch titled
Subject: mm: kmemleak: report leaks only after N consecutive unreferenced scans
has been removed from the -mm tree. Its filename was
mm-kmemleak-report-leaks-only-after-n-consecutive-unreferenced-scans.patch
This patch was dropped because it was merged into the mm-stable branch
of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/akpm/mm
------------------------------------------------------
From: Breno Leitao <leitao@debian.org>
Subject: mm: kmemleak: report leaks only after N consecutive unreferenced scans
Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2026 04:48:05 -0700
kmemleak reports an object the first scan it is found unreferenced. Its
mark phase runs without stopping the rest of the kernel and without a
write barrier, so a live object whose only reference is briefly invisible
during a concurrent RCU update -- e.g. a VMA moved between maple tree
nodes, or a page-cache xa_node -- can be seen as unreferenced for that one
scan. Because an object is flagged as reported only once, such a
transient race turns into a permanent false positive.
Track how many consecutive scans each object has been seen unreferenced
and only report it once that reaches min_unref_scans, a new module
parameter. It defaults to 1, leaving the behaviour unchanged; setting it
higher (e.g. 2) still reports a genuine leak, one scan later, while an
object referenced again before the threshold restarts its run and is never
reported.
min_unref_scans can be set at boot with kmemleak.min_unref_scans=<n> or at
run-time via /sys/module/kmemleak/parameters/min_unref_scans.
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/20260713-catalin_pto-v1-2-5b93b1131089@debian.org
Signed-off-by: Breno Leitao <leitao@debian.org>
Reviewed-by: Catalin Marinas <catalin.marinas@arm.com>
Cc: David Hildenbrand <david@kernel.org>
Cc: Geert Uytterhoeven <geert@linux-m68k.org>
Cc: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
Cc: Liam R. Howlett <liam@infradead.org>
Cc: Lorenzo Stoakes <ljs@kernel.org>
Cc: Michal Hocko <mhocko@suse.com>
Cc: Mike Rapoport <rppt@kernel.org>
Cc: Shuah Khan <shuah@kernel.org>
Cc: Suren Baghdasaryan <surenb@google.com>
Cc: Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
---
Documentation/dev-tools/kmemleak.rst | 8 ++++++++
mm/kmemleak.c | 13 ++++++++++++-
2 files changed, 20 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
--- a/Documentation/dev-tools/kmemleak.rst~mm-kmemleak-report-leaks-only-after-n-consecutive-unreferenced-scans
+++ a/Documentation/dev-tools/kmemleak.rst
@@ -198,6 +198,14 @@ systems, because of pointers temporarily
stacks. Kmemleak defines MSECS_MIN_AGE (defaulting to 1000) representing
the minimum age of an object to be reported as a memory leak.
+The ``min_unref_scans`` module parameter (default 1) requires an object to
+be seen unreferenced in that many consecutive scans before it is reported.
+Keeping it at 1 preserves the historical behaviour; higher values filter
+the transient false positives described above, at the cost of delaying
+genuine reports by up to that many scans. It can be set at boot with
+``kmemleak.min_unref_scans=<n>`` or at run-time via
+``/sys/module/kmemleak/parameters/min_unref_scans``.
+
Limitations and Drawbacks
-------------------------
--- a/mm/kmemleak.c~mm-kmemleak-report-leaks-only-after-n-consecutive-unreferenced-scans
+++ a/mm/kmemleak.c
@@ -151,6 +151,8 @@ struct kmemleak_object {
int min_count;
/* the total number of pointers found pointing to this object */
int count;
+ /* consecutive scans the object has been seen unreferenced */
+ unsigned int unref_scans;
/* checksum for detecting modified objects */
u32 checksum;
depot_stack_handle_t trace_handle;
@@ -234,6 +236,9 @@ static unsigned long max_percpu_addr;
static struct task_struct *scan_thread;
/* used to avoid reporting of recently allocated objects */
static unsigned long jiffies_min_age;
+/* consecutive scans an object must stay unreferenced before reporting */
+static unsigned int min_unref_scans = 1;
+module_param(min_unref_scans, uint, 0644);
static unsigned long jiffies_last_scan;
/* delay between automatic memory scannings */
static unsigned long jiffies_scan_wait;
@@ -692,6 +697,7 @@ static struct kmemleak_object *__alloc_o
object->excess_ref = 0;
object->count = 0; /* white color initially */
object->checksum = ~0;
+ object->unref_scans = 0;
object->del_state = 0;
/* task information */
@@ -1890,6 +1896,9 @@ static int __kmemleak_scan(bool full)
__paint_it(object, KMEMLEAK_BLACK);
}
+ /* referenced last scan: restart the unreferenced run */
+ if (!color_white(object))
+ object->unref_scans = 0;
/* reset the reference count (whiten the object) */
object->count = 0;
if (full)
@@ -2064,9 +2073,11 @@ static void kmemleak_scan(void)
raw_spin_lock_irq(&object->lock);
trace_handle = 0;
dedup_print = false;
+
if (unreferenced_object(object) &&
(object->flags & OBJECT_SUSPECT) &&
- !(object->flags & OBJECT_REPORTED)) {
+ !(object->flags & OBJECT_REPORTED) &&
+ ++object->unref_scans >= min_unref_scans) {
object->flags |= OBJECT_REPORTED;
if (kmemleak_verbose) {
trace_handle = object->trace_handle;
_
Patches currently in -mm which might be from leitao@debian.org are
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2026-08-25 1:55 [merged mm-stable] mm-kmemleak-report-leaks-only-after-n-consecutive-unreferenced-scans.patch removed from -mm tree Andrew Morton
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