Currently if kmemleak is disabled, the kmemleak objects can never be freed,
no matter if it's disabled by a user or due to fatal errors.

Those objects can be a big waste of memory.

  OBJS ACTIVE  USE OBJ SIZE  SLABS OBJ/SLAB CACHE SIZE NAME
1200264 1197433  99%    0.30K  46164       26    369312K kmemleak_object

With this patch, internal objects will be freed immediately if kmemleak is
disabled explicitly by a user. If it's disabled due to a kmemleak error,
The user will be informed, and then he/she can reclaim memory with:

        # echo off > /sys/kernel/debug/kmemleak

v2: use "off" handler instead of "clear" handler to do this, suggested
    by Catalin.

Signed-off-by: Li Zefan <lize...@huawei.com>
---
 Documentation/kmemleak.txt | 14 +++++++++++++-
 mm/kmemleak.c              | 21 ++++++++++++++++-----
 2 files changed, 29 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/kmemleak.txt b/Documentation/kmemleak.txt
index 6dc8013..00aa013 100644
--- a/Documentation/kmemleak.txt
+++ b/Documentation/kmemleak.txt
@@ -42,7 +42,8 @@ objects to be reported as orphan.
 Memory scanning parameters can be modified at run-time by writing to the
 /sys/kernel/debug/kmemleak file. The following parameters are supported:
 
-  off          - disable kmemleak (irreversible)
+  off          - disable kmemleak, or free all kmemleak objects if kmemleak
+                 has been disabled due to fatal errors. (irreversible).
   stack=on     - enable the task stacks scanning (default)
   stack=off    - disable the tasks stacks scanning
   scan=on      - start the automatic memory scanning thread (default)
@@ -118,6 +119,17 @@ Then as usual to get your report with:
 
   # cat /sys/kernel/debug/kmemleak
 
+Freeing kmemleak internal objects
+---------------------------------
+
+To allow access to previously found memory leaks even when an error fatal
+to kmemleak happens, internal kmemleak objects won't be freed in this case.
+Those objects may occupy a large part of physical memory.
+
+You can reclaim memory from those objects with:
+
+  # echo off > /sys/kernel/debug/kmemleak
+
 Kmemleak API
 ------------
 
diff --git a/mm/kmemleak.c b/mm/kmemleak.c
index 31f01c5..7fc030e 100644
--- a/mm/kmemleak.c
+++ b/mm/kmemleak.c
@@ -1616,9 +1616,6 @@ static ssize_t kmemleak_write(struct file *file, const 
char __user *user_buf,
        int buf_size;
        int ret;
 
-       if (!atomic_read(&kmemleak_enabled))
-               return -EBUSY;
-
        buf_size = min(size, (sizeof(buf) - 1));
        if (strncpy_from_user(buf, user_buf, buf_size) < 0)
                return -EFAULT;
@@ -1628,9 +1625,18 @@ static ssize_t kmemleak_write(struct file *file, const 
char __user *user_buf,
        if (ret < 0)
                return ret;
 
-       if (strncmp(buf, "off", 3) == 0)
+       if (strncmp(buf, "off", 3) == 0) {
+               stop_scan_thread();
                kmemleak_disable();
-       else if (strncmp(buf, "stack=on", 8) == 0)
+               goto out;
+       }
+
+       if (!atomic_read(&kmemleak_enabled)) {
+               ret = -EBUSY;
+               goto out;
+       }
+
+       if (strncmp(buf, "stack=on", 8) == 0)
                kmemleak_stack_scan = 1;
        else if (strncmp(buf, "stack=off", 9) == 0)
                kmemleak_stack_scan = 0;
@@ -1695,6 +1701,11 @@ static void kmemleak_do_cleanup(struct work_struct *work)
                list_for_each_entry_rcu(object, &object_list, object_list)
                        delete_object_full(object->pointer);
                rcu_read_unlock();
+       } else {
+               pr_info("Disable kmemleak without freeing internal objects, "
+                       "so you may still check information on memory leak. "
+                       "You may reclaim memory by writing \"off\" to "
+                       "/sys/kernel/debug/kmemleak\n");
        }
        mutex_unlock(&scan_mutex);
 }
-- 
1.8.0.2

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