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

[Andrew Precious <andrewprecious388@xxxxxxxxx>]

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 <jbeulich@xxxxxxxx> 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 <andrewprecious388@xxxxxxxxx>

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