2011-02-06 15:09:15

by Artem Bityutskiy

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [PATCH] mtd: fix memory leak

On Sun, 2011-01-30 at 18:35 +0100, Mathias Krause wrote:
> On 30.01.2011 at 15:52, Artem Bityutskiy wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > On Sun, 2011-01-30 at 10:31 +0100, Mathias Krause wrote:
> >> diff --git a/drivers/mtd/devices/phram.c b/drivers/mtd/devices/phram.c
> >> index 5239328..8d28fa0 100644
> >> --- a/drivers/mtd/devices/phram.c
> >> +++ b/drivers/mtd/devices/phram.c
> >> @@ -117,6 +117,7 @@ static void unregister_devices(void)
> >> list_for_each_entry_safe(this, safe, &phram_list, list) {
> >> del_mtd_device(&this->mtd);
> >> iounmap(this->mtd.priv);
> >> + kfree(this->mtd.name);
> >> kfree(this);
> >> }
> >
> > Since register_device() did not allocate it, unregister_devices() should
> > not free it.
>
> I agree with you, the internal API is a little quirky regarding that point. register_device() should strdup() the name and not just blindly use it. But since the memory for name was already allocated via kmalloc() in phram_setup() it seems a little nitpicky to copy it once again in register_device().
>
> > Hence, I think it is better to free(name) just after
> > calling unregister_devices().
>
> This is not possible because unregister_devices() unregisters all devices, not just a single instance. Though name must be freed for every object in the list. After unregister_devices() returns the list is empty and no pointer to the memory locations do exist any more. So my patch was the straight forward fix for the memory leak.

OK, I agree, I think this patch is good enough, pushed to l2-mtd-2.6.git
tree, thanks.

--
Best Regards,
Artem Bityutskiy (Артём Битюцкий)