Re: INFO: REPRODUCED: memory leak in gpio device in 6.2-rc6

Mirsad Goran Todorovac
2023-02-22T21:28:02Z

On 22. 02. 2023. 11:53, Bartosz Golaszewski wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 21, 2023 at 4:41 PM Andy Shevchenko
> <andriy.shevchenko@intel.com> wrote:
>>
>> On Tue, Feb 21, 2023 at 02:52:38PM +0100, Mirsad Goran Todorovac wrote:
>>> On 20. 02. 2023. 14:43, Andy Shevchenko wrote:
>>>> On Mon, Feb 20, 2023 at 02:10:00PM +0100, Mirsad Todorovac wrote:
>>>>> On 2/16/23 15:16, Bartosz Golaszewski wrote:
>>
>> ...
>>
>>>>> As Mr. McKenney once said, a bunch of monkeys with keyboard could
>>>>> have done it in a considerable number of trials and errors ;-)
>>>>>
>>>>> But here I have something that could potentially leak as well. I could not devise a
>>>>> reproducer due to the leak being lightly triggered only in extreme memory contention.
>>>>>
>>>>> See it for yourself:
>>>>>
>>>>> drivers/gpio/gpio-sim.c:
>>>>> 301 static int gpio_sim_setup_sysfs(struct gpio_sim_chip *chip)
>>>>> 302 {
>>>>> 303 struct device_attribute *val_dev_attr, *pull_dev_attr;
>>>>> 304 struct gpio_sim_attribute *val_attr, *pull_attr;
>>>>> 305 unsigned int num_lines = chip->gc.ngpio;
>>>>> 306 struct device *dev = chip->gc.parent;
>>>>> 307 struct attribute_group *attr_group;
>>>>> 308 struct attribute **attrs;
>>>>> 309 int i, ret;
>>>>> 310
>>>>> 311 chip->attr_groups = devm_kcalloc(dev, sizeof(*chip->attr_groups),
>>>>> 312 num_lines + 1, GFP_KERNEL);
>>>>> 313 if (!chip->attr_groups)
>>>>> 314 return -ENOMEM;
>>>>> 315
>>>>> 316 for (i = 0; i < num_lines; i++) {
>>>>> 317 attr_group = devm_kzalloc(dev, sizeof(*attr_group), GFP_KERNEL);
>>>>> 318 attrs = devm_kcalloc(dev, GPIO_SIM_NUM_ATTRS, sizeof(*attrs),
>>>>> 319 GFP_KERNEL);
>>>>> 320 val_attr = devm_kzalloc(dev, sizeof(*val_attr), GFP_KERNEL);
>>>>> 321 pull_attr = devm_kzalloc(dev, sizeof(*pull_attr), GFP_KERNEL);
>>>>> 322 if (!attr_group || !attrs || !val_attr || !pull_attr)
>>>>> 323 return -ENOMEM;
>>>>> 324
>>>>> 325 attr_group->name = devm_kasprintf(dev, GFP_KERNEL,
>>>>> 326 "sim_gpio%u", i);
>>>>> 327 if (!attr_group->name)
>>>>> 328 return -ENOMEM;
>>>>>
>>>>> Apparently, if the memory allocation only partially succeeds, in the theoretical case
>>>>> that the system is close to its kernel memory exhaustion, `return -ENOMEM` would not
>>>>> free the partially succeeded allocs, would it?
>>>>>
>>>>> To explain it better, I tried a version that is not yet full doing "all or nothing"
>>>>> memory allocation for the gpio-sim driver, because I am not that familiar with the
>>>>> driver internals.
>>>>
>>>> devm_*() mean that the resource allocation is made in a managed manner, so when
>>>> it's done, it will be freed automatically.
>>>
>>> Didn't see that one coming ... :-/ "buzzing though the bush ..."
>>>
>>>> The question is: is the lifetime of the attr_groups should be lesser or the
>>>> same as chip->gc.parent? Maybe it's incorrect to call devm_*() in the first place?
>>>
>>> Bona fide said, I hope that automatic deallocation does things in the right order.
>>> I've realised that devm_kzalloc() calls devm_kmalloc() that registers allocations on
>>> a per driver list. But I am not sure how chip->gc was allocated?
>>>
>>> Here is said it is allocated in drivers/gpio/gpio-sim.c:386 in gpio_sim_add_bank(),
>>> as a part of
>>>
>>> struct gpio_sim_chip *chip;
>>> struct gpio_chip *gc;
>>>
>>> gc = &chip->gc;
>>>
>>> and gc->parent is set to
>>>
>>> gc->parent = dev;
>>>
>>> in line 420, which appears called before gpio_sim_setup_sysfs() and the lines above.
>>>
>>> If I understood well, automatic deallocation on unloading the driver goes
>>> in the reverse order, so lifetime of chip appears to be longer than attr_groups,
>>> but I am really not that good at this ...
>>
>> So, the device is instantiated by platform_device_register_full().
>>
>> It should gone with the platform_device_unregister().
>>
>> In case of CONFIG_DEBUG_KOBJECT_RELEASE=y the ->release() can be called
>> asynchronously.
>>
>> So, there are following questions:
>> - is the put_device() is actually called?
>> - is the above mentioned option is set to Y?
>> - if it's in Y, does kmemleak take it into account?
>> - if no, do you get anything new in `dmesg` when enable it?
>>
>>>> Or maybe the chip->gc.parent should be changed to something else (actual GPIO
>>>> device, but then it's unclear how to provide the attributes in non-racy way
>>> Really, dunno. I have to repeat that my learning curve cannot adapt so quickly.
>>>
>>> I merely gave the report of KMEMLEAK, otherwise I am not a Linux kernel
>>> device expert nor would be appropriate to try the craft not earned ;-)
>>
>> --
>> With Best Regards,
>> Andy Shevchenko

> Mirsad,
>
> I think you fear that the memory allocated for sysfs attributes could
> be accessed after the driver is detached from the simulated GPIO
> device? This is not possible as sysfs handles that gracefully (by
> removing all sysfs attributes with driver_sysfs_remove()) before
> freeing devres resources. You can test that yourself by instantiating
> a gpio-sim device, opening and holding a file descriptor to one of the
> sysfs attributes, disabling the device and then trying to read from
> said fd - it will return -ENODEV.
>
> Let me know if you actually mean something else?

Hi Bartosz,

I have to repeat that I am not an expert in the Linux kernel
drivers, but have only found the leak using the DEBUG_KMEMLEAK
kernel tweak.

After (in gpio/gpio-sim.sh):

SYSFS_PATH="/sys/devices/platform/$DEVNAME/$CHIPNAME/sim_gpio0/value"
echo "4.1b Disabling gpio-sim device $DEVNAME $CHIPNAME $SYSFS_PATH"
tail -f "$SYSFS_PATH" &
sleep 3
echo 0 > /sys/kernel/config/gpio-sim/chip/live

I get "No such file or directory" when trying to read from sysfs parameters:

Failed to open /dev/none: No such file or directory

Actually, this apparently comes from the tail command unexpectedly using
inotify()
to monitor changes on the .../sim_gpio0/value, and reopening the file.

This sounds like a good idea for a gpio-sim test, as it might be impractical
to change the gpio-sim.sh source for a newbie kernel tester and they may obviously
lack your insight.

However, at my level I am content that the leak is patched at its core
source. It is human to make such omission, and may I remind you that one time
a satellite was lost due to an error traced down to a single wrong character
or digit.

Finding a bug only reminds me of my own bugs in much less complicated
situations with fewer gotchas ... I wonder if such cases could be discovered
by static analysis, but from the given loop, I simply do not see how a robot
could have guessed the intent of the test ...

Let's stay positive, a leak is fixed, and this was a great experience with
a great team.

Further hardening of the driver might be a good thing, but I suppose the way is
in what Andy proposed, but I am still doing a homework on that one.

Regards,
Mirsad

--
Mirsad Goran Todorovac
Sistem inženjer
Grafički fakultet | Akademija likovnih umjetnosti
Sveučilište u Zagrebu

System engineer
Faculty of Graphic Arts | Academy of Fine Arts
University of Zagreb, Republic of Croatia
The European Union