[rvm-research] Memory Leaks in Thread Creation/Deletion

Carl Ritson <[email protected]>
Newsgroups gmane.comp.java.jikes.rvm.devel
Message-ID <CAKDym5Np4fSBf-b7Vtv6-6WcwCAxChN1NtUNJZ4sp_xbVtWwaw@mail.gmail.com>
Hi,

For debugging I recently wrote a test that endless creates and
terminates threads (attached as ThreadTest3.java).  This test
consistently crashes JikesRVM after about 450,000 threads have been
created.  The crash occurs when pthread_create fails due to a lack of
resources, or as it turns out, a lack of memory.

Digging around in sys.C it seems some allocation is done with C++
primitives (new/delete) and the rest with malloc/free.  There doesn't
appear to be an obvious reason for this.
There also seem to be two distinct memory leaks:
 1. the memory allocated for the parameters passed to the new thread
via pthread_create is not freed.
 2. the signal handling stack can be allocated twice, once by
sysThreadStartup and once by sysSetupHardwareTrapHandler; however,
only the stack allocated by sysThreadStartup will be release when a
thread terminates.

Attached is a patch which attempts to address these issues with
(mostly) minimal changes:
 A. uses of new/delete are replaced with malloc/free.
 B. all calls to malloc/free pass via (existing) checking functions to
check for address space overlaps.
 C. thread parameters are releases at thread termination.
 D. thread termination checks for the presence of an alternate signal
stack and release it if present.

For (2)/(D) I suspect that the signal stack should only be allocated
once by sysThreadStartup and not by sysSetupHardwareTrapHandler.
However I haven't fully investigated what the separation of concerns
between these methods should be.

With these changes memory leakage appears to have stopped for the test code.

Kind regards,

Carl

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ThreadTest3.java (application/octet-stream, 1.2 KB) - not displayed
sys-c-memory-leaks-20140905b.patch (application/octet-stream, 3.6 KB)
diff -r 05dd10867319 tools/bootImageRunner/sys.C
--- a/tools/bootImageRunner/sys.C	Thu Sep 04 17:44:40 2014 +0200
+++ b/tools/bootImageRunner/sys.C	Fri Sep 05 15:13:27 2014 +0100
@@ -145,6 +145,9 @@
 extern "C" void sysMonitorWait(Word);
 extern "C" void sysMonitorBroadcast(Word);
 
+static void* checkMalloc(int);
+static void checkFree(void*);
+
 // #define DEBUG_SYS
 // #define DEBUG_THREAD
 
@@ -978,7 +981,7 @@
 
     // create arguments
     //
-    sysThreadArguments = new Address[3];
+    sysThreadArguments = (Address*) checkMalloc(sizeof(Address) * 3);
     sysThreadArguments[0] = tr;
     sysThreadArguments[1] = ip;
     sysThreadArguments[2] = fp;
@@ -1086,7 +1089,7 @@
     char *stackBuf;
 
     memset (&stack, 0, sizeof stack);
-    stack.ss_sp = stackBuf = new char[SIGSTKSZ];
+    stack.ss_sp = stackBuf = (char*) checkMalloc(sizeof(char) * SIGSTKSZ);
     stack.ss_flags = 0;
     stack.ss_size = SIGSTKSZ;
     if (sigaltstack (&stack, 0)) {
@@ -1096,18 +1099,30 @@
 
     Address tr       = ((Address *)args)[0];
 
-    jmp_buf *jb = (jmp_buf*)malloc(sizeof(jmp_buf));
+    jmp_buf *jb = (jmp_buf*)checkMalloc(sizeof(jmp_buf));
     if (setjmp(*jb)) {
-	// this is where we come to terminate the thread
+        // this is where we come to terminate the thread
 #ifdef RVM_FOR_HARMONY
         hythread_detach(NULL);
 #endif
-	free(jb);
-	*(int*)(tr + RVMThread_execStatus_offset) = RVMThread_TERMINATED;
-	
-	stack.ss_flags = SS_DISABLE;
-	sigaltstack(&stack, 0);
-	delete[] stackBuf;
+        checkFree(jb);
+        *(int*)(tr + RVMThread_execStatus_offset) = RVMThread_TERMINATED;
+
+        // disable the signal stack (first retreiving the current one)
+        sigaltstack(0, &stack);
+        stack.ss_flags = SS_DISABLE;
+        sigaltstack(&stack, 0);
+
+        // check if the signal stack is the one in stackBuf
+        if (stack.ss_sp != stackBuf) {
+            // no; release it as well
+            checkFree(stack.ss_sp);
+        }
+        
+        // release signal stack allocated here
+        checkFree(stackBuf);
+        // release arguments
+        checkFree(args);
     } else {
         setThreadLocal(TerminateJmpBufKey, (void*)jb);
 	
@@ -1198,7 +1213,7 @@
     stack_t stack;
 
     memset (&stack, 0, sizeof stack);
-    stack.ss_sp = new char[SIGSTKSZ];
+    stack.ss_sp = (char*) checkMalloc(sizeof(char) * SIGSTKSZ);
 
     stack.ss_size = SIGSTKSZ;
     if (sigaltstack (&stack, 0)) {
@@ -1373,7 +1388,7 @@
     hythread_monitor_t monitor;
     hythread_monitor_init_with_name(&monitor, 0, NULL);
 #else
-    vmmonitor_t *monitor = new vmmonitor_t;
+    vmmonitor_t *monitor = (vmmonitor_t*) checkMalloc(sizeof(vmmonitor_t));
     pthread_mutex_init(&monitor->mutex, NULL);
     pthread_cond_init(&monitor->cond, NULL);
 #endif
@@ -1389,7 +1404,7 @@
     vmmonitor_t *monitor = (vmmonitor_t*)_monitor;
     pthread_mutex_destroy(&monitor->mutex);
     pthread_cond_destroy(&monitor->cond);
-    delete monitor;
+    checkFree(monitor);
 #endif
 }
 
@@ -1688,10 +1703,8 @@
 
 int inRVMAddressSpace(Address a);
 
-// Allocate memory.
-//
-extern "C" void *
-sysMalloc(int length)
+static void*
+checkMalloc(int length)
 {
     void *result=malloc(length);
     if (inRVMAddressSpace((Address)result)) {
@@ -1700,6 +1713,20 @@
     return result;
 }
 
+static void
+checkFree(void* mem)
+{
+    free(mem);
+}
+
+// Allocate memory.
+//
+extern "C" void *
+sysMalloc(int length)
+{
+    return checkMalloc(length);
+}
+
 extern "C" void *
 sysCalloc(int length)
 {
@@ -1711,7 +1738,7 @@
 extern "C" void
 sysFree(void *location)
 {
-    free(location);
+    checkFree(location);
 }
 
 // Zero a range of memory with non-temporal instructions on x86
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