Re: ref_tracker

Hello Adrian,

Thank you for you email.

---- On Fri, 04 Apr 2025 18:44:55 -0300 Adrian Johnston  wrote ---

 > Hello kernelci, 
 >  
 > I have exciting news. We have a reoccurring class of dangerous bugs in 
 > the kernel that could be identified during a CI run. 

That sounds good.

 >  
 > The kernel comes with a reference count debugger called ref_tracker. 
 > And yet, every minor release of the kernel seems to fix another 
 > reference counting bug.  Often kernel releases fix 3 or more. 
 > Meanwhile, the folks over on linux-debuggers aren't even sure anyone 
 > is using this reference counting debugger that often. 
 >  
 > Is anyone willing to flip the switch on this debugger on your staging 
 > machine?  This seems like the kind of thing Linus should know about 20 
 > minutes after merging a patch. 

What does flip the switch means here? Is there a kernel config option that people should add to their CI kernel builds?

Best,

- Gus