Re: [XEN PATCH] tools/console/daemon: fix log_dir memory leak in xenconsoled

Noted,it's my 1st first time contributing.

Should I generate a version 2 patch for this?

On Fri, Aug 14, 2026 at 10:52 AM Jan Beulich <[email protected]> wrote:

> On 13.08.2026 23:27, Andrew Mbugua wrote:
> > Valgrind reports that 21 bytes are "still reachable" from the
> (XEN_LOG_DIR "/console") allocation:
> >
> > HEAP SUMMARY:
> >     in use at exit: 21 bytes in 1 blocks
> >     total heap usage: 9 allocs, 8 frees, 4,799 bytes allocated
> >
> > Since the dynamic memory allocation for the default log directory path
> happens before the process
> > forks into the background, the parent and intermediate processes exit
> during daemonize()
> > with the memory still reachable.
> >
> > Move the strdup() allocation down below the daemonize() block. This
> ensures only the final
> > background daemon allocates the default path, matching the lifetime of
> the free(log_dir)
> > cleanup loop at the exit of main().
> >
> > With this change, Valgrind reports a clean heap summary
> >
> > HEAP SUMMARY:
> >     in use at exit: 0 bytes in 0 blocks
> >     total heap usage: 8 allocs, 8 frees, 4,778 bytes allocated
> >
> > Signed-off-by: Andrew Mbugua <[email protected]>
>
> Looks all plausible (albeit a little unnecessary, as memory is freed at
> program exit anyway), except that ...
>
> > --- a/tools/console/daemon/main.c
> > +++ b/tools/console/daemon/main.c
> > @@ -181,10 +181,6 @@ int main(int argc, char **argv)
> >               }
> >       }
> >
> > -     if (!log_dir) {
> > -             log_dir = strdup(XEN_LOG_DIR "/console");
> > -     }
> > -
> >       if (geteuid() != 0) {
> >               fprintf(stderr, "%s requires root to run.\n", argv[0]);
> >               exit(EPERM);
> > @@ -201,6 +197,10 @@ int main(int argc, char **argv)
> >               daemonize(pidfile ? pidfile : XEN_RUN_DIR
> "/xenconsoled.pid");
> >       }
> >
> > +     if (!log_dir) {
> > +                log_dir = strdup(XEN_LOG_DIR "/console");
> > +        }
> ... can you please not screw up indentation? All you want is to move the
> code, without converting tabs to blanks.
>
> Jan
>