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From: John Reiser <jreiser@BitWagon.com>
To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: slab quirks in DEBUG, ctor, and initialization
Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 07:47:34 -0800	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <47669A16.3010604@BitWagon.com> (raw)

In mm/slab.c, the DEBUG variant of cache_alloc_debugcheck_after
might call  cachep->ctor(objp, cachep, 0);  but the non-DEBUG
variant does absolutely nothing.  idr_pre_get is a routine
which notices the difference.

Even when cache_alloc_debugcheck_after does invoke the ctor,
then it is conditional upon  cachep->flags & SLAB_POISON .  This
assumes that the only two states are poisoned and all-zero
(from .bss static, or via a cleared new page frame.)
So if SLAB_POISON is not specified, then a ctor which
does anything other than memset(,0,) is out of luck.
Instead: if a ctor is specified then it should be called
for each successful allocation.

Invoking the ctor from within cache_alloc_debugcheck_after makes it
awkward for a dynamic checker of allocations and  initializations.
Valgrind would be happier if allocation and initialization were
invoked at the same subroutine nesting level, such as in __cache_alloc:

        cache_alloc_debugcheck_before(cachep, flags);
        local_irq_save(save_flags);
        objp = __do_cache_alloc(cachep, flags);
	/* checker marks the space as allocated */
        local_irq_restore(save_flags);
        objp = cache_alloc_debugcheck_after(cachep, flags, objp, caller);
	if (objp && cachep->ctor)
		cachep->ctor(objp, cachep, 0);
	/* checker notes initializations during ctor [above] */

-- 
John Reiser, jreiser@BitWagon.com

             reply	other threads:[~2007-12-17 15:47 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 4+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2007-12-17 15:47 John Reiser [this message]
2007-12-17 19:51 ` slab quirks in DEBUG, ctor, and initialization Pekka Enberg
2007-12-17 21:19   ` John Reiser
2007-12-17 21:55     ` Pekka J Enberg

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