linux/mm
Thomas Gleixner 3ac7fe5a4a infrastructure to debug (dynamic) objects
We can see an ever repeating problem pattern with objects of any kind in the
kernel:

1) freeing of active objects
2) reinitialization of active objects

Both problems can be hard to debug because the crash happens at a point where
we have no chance to decode the root cause anymore.  One problem spot are
kernel timers, where the detection of the problem often happens in interrupt
context and usually causes the machine to panic.

While working on a timer related bug report I had to hack specialized code
into the timer subsystem to get a reasonable hint for the root cause.  This
debug hack was fine for temporary use, but far from a mergeable solution due
to the intrusiveness into the timer code.

The code further lacked the ability to detect and report the root cause
instantly and keep the system operational.

Keeping the system operational is important to get hold of the debug
information without special debugging aids like serial consoles and special
knowledge of the bug reporter.

The problems described above are not restricted to timers, but timers tend to
expose it usually in a full system crash.  Other objects are less explosive,
but the symptoms caused by such mistakes can be even harder to debug.

Instead of creating specialized debugging code for the timer subsystem a
generic infrastructure is created which allows developers to verify their code
and provides an easy to enable debug facility for users in case of trouble.

The debugobjects core code keeps track of operations on static and dynamic
objects by inserting them into a hashed list and sanity checking them on
object operations and provides additional checks whenever kernel memory is
freed.

The tracked object operations are:
- initializing an object
- adding an object to a subsystem list
- deleting an object from a subsystem list

Each operation is sanity checked before the operation is executed and the
subsystem specific code can provide a fixup function which allows to prevent
the damage of the operation.  When the sanity check triggers a warning message
and a stack trace is printed.

The list of operations can be extended if the need arises.  For now it's
limited to the requirements of the first user (timers).

The core code enqueues the objects into hash buckets.  The hash index is
generated from the address of the object to simplify the lookup for the check
on kfree/vfree.  Each bucket has it's own spinlock to avoid contention on a
global lock.

The debug code can be compiled in without being active.  The runtime overhead
is minimal and could be optimized by asm alternatives.  A kernel command line
option enables the debugging code.

Thanks to Ingo Molnar for review, suggestions and cleanup patches.

Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
Cc: Greg KH <greg@kroah.com>
Cc: Randy Dunlap <randy.dunlap@oracle.com>
Cc: Kay Sievers <kay.sievers@vrfy.org>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2008-04-30 08:29:53 -07:00
..
allocpercpu.c
backing-dev.c mm: bdi: move statistics to debugfs 2008-04-30 08:29:50 -07:00
bootmem.c memory hotplug: make alloc_bootmem_section() 2008-04-28 08:58:25 -07:00
bounce.c
dmapool.c dmapool: enable debugging for CONFIG_SLUB_DEBUG_ON too 2008-04-28 08:58:20 -07:00
fadvise.c xip: support non-struct page backed memory 2008-04-28 08:58:23 -07:00
filemap_xip.c xip: support non-struct page backed memory 2008-04-28 08:58:23 -07:00
filemap.c mm: rotate_reclaimable_page() cleanup 2008-04-28 08:58:20 -07:00
fremap.c
highmem.c
hugetlb.c page allocator: explicitly retry hugepage allocations 2008-04-29 08:05:58 -07:00
internal.h memory hotplug: free memmaps allocated by bootmem 2008-04-28 08:58:26 -07:00
Kconfig PAGEFLAGS_EXTENDED and separate page flags for Head and Tail 2008-04-28 08:58:22 -07:00
maccess.c
madvise.c xip: support non-struct page backed memory 2008-04-28 08:58:23 -07:00
Makefile
memcontrol.c memcg: remove redundant initialization in mem_cgroup_create() 2008-04-29 08:06:11 -07:00
memory_hotplug.c mm/memory_hotplug.c must #include "internal.h" 2008-04-28 13:44:29 -07:00
memory.c mm: add vm_insert_mixed 2008-04-28 08:58:23 -07:00
mempolicy.c mempolicy: use struct mempolicy pointer in shmem_sb_info 2008-04-28 08:58:25 -07:00
mempool.c
migrate.c
mincore.c mm: remove nopage 2008-04-28 08:58:18 -07:00
mlock.c
mmap.c procfs task exe symlink 2008-04-29 08:06:17 -07:00
mmzone.c mm: filter based on a nodemask as well as a gfp_mask 2008-04-28 08:58:19 -07:00
mprotect.c
mremap.c
msync.c
nommu.c procfs task exe symlink 2008-04-29 08:06:17 -07:00
oom_kill.c oom_kill: remove unused parameter in badness() 2008-04-28 08:58:26 -07:00
page_alloc.c infrastructure to debug (dynamic) objects 2008-04-30 08:29:53 -07:00
page_io.c
page_isolation.c
page-writeback.c mm: Add NR_WRITEBACK_TEMP counter 2008-04-30 08:29:50 -07:00
pagewalk.c mm: fix possible off-by-one in walk_pte_range() 2008-04-28 08:58:16 -07:00
pdflush.c Merge branch 'for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/juhl/trivial 2008-04-21 16:36:46 -07:00
prio_tree.c
quicklist.c
readahead.c mm: bdi: export BDI attributes in sysfs 2008-04-30 08:29:49 -07:00
rmap.c mm: remove nopage 2008-04-28 08:58:18 -07:00
shmem_acl.c
shmem.c mm: bdi: add separate writeback accounting capability 2008-04-30 08:29:50 -07:00
slab.c infrastructure to debug (dynamic) objects 2008-04-30 08:29:53 -07:00
slob.c slob: fix bug - when slob allocates "struct kmem_cache", it does not force alignment. 2008-04-27 18:25:51 +03:00
slub.c infrastructure to debug (dynamic) objects 2008-04-30 08:29:53 -07:00
sparse-vmemmap.c
sparse.c memory hotplug: free memmaps allocated by bootmem 2008-04-28 08:58:26 -07:00
swap_state.c mm: bdi: add separate writeback accounting capability 2008-04-30 08:29:50 -07:00
swap.c mm: rotate_reclaimable_page() cleanup 2008-04-28 08:58:20 -07:00
swapfile.c mm: use non-racy method for /proc/swaps creation 2008-04-29 08:06:20 -07:00
thrash.c
tiny-shmem.c
truncate.c fix invalidate_inode_pages2_range() to not clear ret 2008-04-28 08:58:18 -07:00
util.c
vmalloc.c infrastructure to debug (dynamic) objects 2008-04-30 08:29:53 -07:00
vmscan.c page allocator: smarter retry of costly-order allocations 2008-04-29 08:05:58 -07:00
vmstat.c mm: Add NR_WRITEBACK_TEMP counter 2008-04-30 08:29:50 -07:00