[rrd-users] Valgrind error rrd_update.c:982

Mon Jun 16 09:50:09 CEST 2014

Hi Matthias,

Today Matthias Nagel wrote:

> Hi,
>
> > The setlocale() thread-safeness problems are well known, but there is also a
> > rather significant lack of a decent widely adopted workaround.
>
> I know, but what I want to say is that according to this page [1] the
> rrd_update_r function is said to be thread-save but it isn't. Hence,
> if I had not stumbled across the first point (aka the memory bug) I
> would not have noticed this one. I  would never have assumed that
> rrd_update_r uses setlocale. (Perhaps sometimes later in the future
> after I would have observed strange behaviour.) That's why I asked for
> a big warning at [1].
>
> I do not know yet, if setlocale is the only problem with rrd_update_r,
> but at least I see a bug fix for this one. There is no need to use
> setlocale at all, if there was an interface like
>
> rrd_update_r( cont char* rrdFile, time_t ts, size_t argc, const char*
> desc[], const T* val[] )
>
> for T being a numeric type. This way one could avoid the conversion to
> and from a string at all. The calling application is responsible of
> providing the correct datatype. That should even simplify rrd_update_r
> because there is no need to
> parse an argument of the pattern "<ts>:<val 1>:...:<val n>".

since all we are doing with setlocale in rrdtool, is to get strtod to be
NOT locale sensitive. Another aproach would be to switch to a
nonlocale sensitive implementation of strtod and get rid of all the
setlocale calls.

http://www.jbox.dk/sanos/source/lib/strtod.c.html

care to provide a patch ?

cheers
tobi

> Regards, Matthias
>
> [1] http://oss.oetiker.ch/rrdtool/prog/rrdthreads.en.html
>
> 2014-06-16 1:47 GMT+02:00 Donovan Baarda <abo at minkirri.apana.org.au>:
> > The setlocale() thread-safeness problems are well known, but there is also a
> > rather significant lack of a decent widely adopted workaround. This is the
> > problem with many of the standard C libraries... they pre-date threading,
> > and there was never consensus/standardizing on any thread safe alternative.
> >
> > For any thread-safe alternative to work, everything needs to use it, but
> > without a standard, you can pretty much guarantee that something you link
> > will not use it, and some platforms won't even have it.
> >
> > So instead, your best option is often to just declare your code
> > non-thread-safe and recommend subprocesses instead... but then the
> > inter-process communication libs are not as well developed as the threading
> > libs.
> >
> > Either that or completely embrace something like glib which replaces nearly
> > everything in the standard C libs and only use other libs that also use
> > glib. When you do this you also have to accept that your code doesn't look
> > like normal C any more, and you might have some platform restrictions.
> >
> >
> >
> > On 16 June 2014 08:39, Matthias Nagel <matthias.h.nagel at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> Hello,
> >> thanks. In the meantime I patched my Debian packages locally. But I ran
> >> into another race condition. rrd_update_r() isn't thread-save, because the C
> >> locale is an application wide variable. Assume one has rrdlib (A) and some
> >> other library (B) and the execution order is as follows:
> >>
> >> (A1) old_locale = setlocale(...)
> >> (B1) old_locale = setlocale(...)
> >> (A2) // do some locale-dependent stuff
> >> (A3) setlocale( old_locale )
> >> (B2) // do some locale-dependent stuff
> >> (B3) setlocale( old_locale )
> >>
> >> Here, library B can be any library that also sets the global C locale
> >> within a different thread context. In the best case some strings are
> >> misinterpreted, in the worst case the memory gets corrupted :-( At the
> >> moment, I wrote a work-around by using an application wide mutex that must
> >> be locked by any thread that wants to call any library that might change the
> >> global C locale. But of course this isn't very nice.
> >>
> >> Are there any chances that the rrd_update_r function (and relatives) will
> >> be rewritten? For example, C++ locales are bounded to a specific stream and
> >> are not global. At least there should be big, BIG warning at
> >> http://oss.oetiker.ch/rrdtool/prog/rrdthreads.en.html that the C locale is
> >> subject to a race condition.
> >>
> >> Regards, Matthias
> >>
> >> Am Sonntag, 15. Juni 2014, 22:37:01 schrieb Tobias Oetiker:
> >> > Hi Matthias,
> >> >
> >> > yes you are right ... we fixed this in master, but not in the 1.4
> >> > branch ... it is now ...
> >> >
> >> > cheers
> >> > tobi
> >> >
> >> > Today Matthias Nagel wrote:
> >> >
> >> > > Hello,
> >> > >
> >> > > I am writing a multi-threaded C++ application that uses rrdlib
> >> > > natively by calling rrd_update_r().  If I compile without optimazations and
> >> > > enable -ggdb everything seems to work fine. As soon as I switch to -O2 and
> >> > > disable -ggdb my apllication crashes at runtime.
> >> > >
> >> > > If it crashes the output is either
> >> > >
> >> > > *** glibc detected *** rrdtool: <something>
> >> > >
> >> > > or
> >> > >
> >> > > expected timestamp not found in data source from <input>
> >> > >
> >> > > but <input> is not the string that was given to rrd_update_r but
> >> > > unreadable garbage. Obviously, it is a memory corruption problem. Therefore,
> >> > > I ran the application under valgrind and I noticed that the problems comes
> >> > > from inside of the rrdlib. The message is
> >> > >
> >> > >
> >> > > ==11724== Invalid read of size 1
> >> > > ==11724==    at 0x4C2A051: __GI_strcmp (mc_replace_strmem.c:712)
> >> > > ==11724==    by 0x5A4FF7F: setlocale (setlocale.c:210)
> >> > > ==11724==    by 0x505D06B: _rrd_update (rrd_update.c:982)
> >> > > ==11724==  Address 0x9deb0d0 is 0 bytes inside a block of size 12
> >> > > free'd
> >> > > ==11724==    at 0x4C27D4E: free (vg_replace_malloc.c:427)
> >> > > ==11724==    by 0x5A4FCBD: setname (setlocale.c:173)
> >> > > ==11724==    by 0x5A500B0: setlocale (setlocale.c:417)
> >> > > ==11724==    by 0x505D02D: _rrd_update (rrd_update.c:974)
> >> > >
> >> > > Let's have a look at it:
> >> > >
> >> > > rrd_update.c:973: old_locale = setlocale(LC_NUMERIC, NULL);
> >> > > rrd_update.c:974: setlocale(LC_NUMERIC, "C");
> >> > > rrd_update.c:982: setlocale(LC_NUMERIC, old_locale);
> >> > >
> >> > > The problem is obvious. The variable "old_locale" that is used at the
> >> > > 3rd line was assigned at the 1st line. But the 2nd call to "setlocale" freed
> >> > > the return value of the first call. According to the man pages the return
> >> > > value is a pointer to static memory and freed/allocated on every call.
> >> > > Actually the 2nd line (974) should be ommited and it should be
> >> > >
> >> > > rrd_update.c:973: old_locale = setlocale(LC_NUMERIC, "C" );
> >> > > rrd_update.c:974: // deleted
> >> > > rrd_update.c:982: setlocale(LC_NUMERIC, old_locale);
> >> > >
> >> > > Why this double call to "setlocale" anyway?
> >> > >
> >> > > Best regards, Matthias
> >> > >
> >> > >
> >> >
> >> >
> >>
> >> --
> >> Matthias Nagel
> >> Parkstraße 27
> >> 76131 Karlsruhe
> >>
> >> Festnetz: +49-721-96869289
> >> Mobil: +49-151-15998774
> >> e-Mail: matthias.h.nagel at gmail.com
> >> ICQ: 499797758
> >> Skype: nagmat84
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> rrd-users mailing list
> >> rrd-users at lists.oetiker.ch
> >> https://lists.oetiker.ch/cgi-bin/listinfo/rrd-users
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Donovan Baarda <abo at minkirri.apana.org.au>
>
>
>
>

-- 
Tobi Oetiker, OETIKER+PARTNER AG, Aarweg 15 CH-4600 Olten, Switzerland
www.oetiker.ch tobi at oetiker.ch +41 62 775 9902