idea for catching memory leaks

C. Scott Ananian (cananian@lcs.mit.edu)
Sat, 25 Oct 1997 21:14:28 -0400 (EDT)

> From: Nathan Bryant <nathan@nbryan71.dorm.usm.maine.edu>
> Date: Fri, 24 Oct 1997 19:09:40 -0400 (EDT)
> Subject: idea for catching memory leaks
>
> here's a simple idea for catching memory leaks: modify kmalloc() so that
> it examines its call frame and tags each chunk of memory with the address
> kmalloc() was called from. i'd be surprised if nobody has thought of
> something like this before; has anyone done patches for that sort of
> thing?

Might I suggest adding a 'magic sequence' bracketing your tags as well?
Then a user-mode binary grep through /dev/kmem could identify potential
trouble areas. Not 100% accurate, of course, but should grab any
significant growing leaks due to a single source.
--Scott
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