Re: [PATCH 11/12] builtin/rebase: fix options.strategy memory lifecycle

[Phillip Wood <phillip.wood123@gmail.com>]

Hi Andrzej

Thanks for working on removing memory leaks from git.

On 20/06/2021 16:12, andrzej@ahunt.org wrote:
> From: Andrzej Hunt <ajrhunt@google.com>
> 
> This change:
> - xstrdup()'s all string being used for replace_opts.strategy, to

I think you mean replay_opts rather than replace_opts.

>    guarantee that replace_opts owns these strings. This is needed because
>    sequencer_remove_state() will free replace_opts.strategy, and it's
>    usually called as part of the usage of replace_opts.
> - Removes xstrdup()'s being used to populate options.strategy in
>    cmd_rebase(), which avoids leaking options.strategy, even in the
>    case where strategy is never moved/copied into replace_opts.


> These changes are needed because:
> - We would always create a new string for options.strategy if we either
>    get a strategy via options (OPT_STRING(...strategy...), or via
>    GIT_TEST_MERGE_ALGORITHM.
> - But only sometimes is this string copied into replace_opts - in which
>    case it did get free()'d in sequencer_remove_state().
> - The rest of the time, the newly allocated string would remain unused,
>    causing a leak. But we can't just add a free because that can result
>    in a double-free in those cases where replace_opts was populated.
> 
> An alternative approach would be to set options.strategy to NULL when
> moving the pointer to replace_opts.strategy, combined with always
> free()'ing options.strategy, but that seems like a more
> complicated and wasteful approach.

read_basic_state() contains
	if (file_exists(state_dir_path("strategy", opts))) {
		strbuf_reset(&buf);
		if (!read_oneliner(&buf, state_dir_path("strategy", opts),
				   READ_ONELINER_WARN_MISSING))
			return -1;
		free(opts->strategy);
		opts->strategy = xstrdup(buf.buf);
	}

So we do try to free opts->strategy when reading the state from disc and 
we allocate a new string. I suspect that opts->strategy is actually NULL 
in when this function is called but I haven't checked. Given that we are 
allocating a copy above I think maybe your alternative approach of 
always freeing opts->strategy would be better.

Best Wishes

Phillip

> This was first seen when running t0021 with LSAN, but t2012 helped catch
> the fact that we can't just free(options.strategy) at the end of
> cmd_rebase (as that can cause a double-free). LSAN output from t0021:
> 
> LSAN output from t0021:
> 
> Direct leak of 4 byte(s) in 1 object(s) allocated from:
>      #0 0x486804 in strdup ../projects/compiler-rt/lib/asan/asan_interceptors.cpp:452:3
>      #1 0xa71eb8 in xstrdup wrapper.c:29:14
>      #2 0x61b1cc in cmd_rebase builtin/rebase.c:1779:22
>      #3 0x4ce83e in run_builtin git.c:475:11
>      #4 0x4ccafe in handle_builtin git.c:729:3
>      #5 0x4cb01c in run_argv git.c:818:4
>      #6 0x4cb01c in cmd_main git.c:949:19
>      #7 0x6b3fad in main common-main.c:52:11
>      #8 0x7f267b512349 in __libc_start_main (/lib64/libc.so.6+0x24349)
> 
> SUMMARY: AddressSanitizer: 4 byte(s) leaked in 1 allocation(s).
> 
> Signed-off-by: Andrzej Hunt <andrzej@ahunt.org>
> ---
>   builtin/rebase.c | 5 ++---
>   1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)
> 
> diff --git a/builtin/rebase.c b/builtin/rebase.c
> index 12f093121d..9d81db0f3a 100644
> --- a/builtin/rebase.c
> +++ b/builtin/rebase.c
> @@ -139,7 +139,7 @@ static struct replay_opts get_replay_opts(const struct rebase_options *opts)
>   	replay.ignore_date = opts->ignore_date;
>   	replay.gpg_sign = xstrdup_or_null(opts->gpg_sign_opt);
>   	if (opts->strategy)
> -		replay.strategy = opts->strategy;
> +		replay.strategy = xstrdup_or_null(opts->strategy);
>   	else if (!replay.strategy && replay.default_strategy) {
>   		replay.strategy = replay.default_strategy;
>   		replay.default_strategy = NULL;
> @@ -1723,7 +1723,6 @@ int cmd_rebase(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix)
>   	}
>   
>   	if (options.strategy) {
> -		options.strategy = xstrdup(options.strategy);
>   		switch (options.type) {
>   		case REBASE_APPLY:
>   			die(_("--strategy requires --merge or --interactive"));
> @@ -1776,7 +1775,7 @@ int cmd_rebase(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix)
>   	if (options.type == REBASE_MERGE &&
>   	    !options.strategy &&
>   	    getenv("GIT_TEST_MERGE_ALGORITHM"))
> -		options.strategy = xstrdup(getenv("GIT_TEST_MERGE_ALGORITHM"));
> +		options.strategy = getenv("GIT_TEST_MERGE_ALGORITHM");
>   
>   	switch (options.type) {
>   	case REBASE_MERGE:
>