perf header: Fix use of unitialized value warning

When building our local version of perf with MSAN (Memory Sanitizer) and
running the perf record command, MSAN throws a use of uninitialized
value warning in "tools/perf/util/util.c:333:6".

This warning stems from the "buf" variable being passed into "write".
It originated as the variable "ev" with the type union perf_event*
defined in the "perf_event__synthesize_attr" function in
"tools/perf/util/header.c".

In the "perf_event__synthesize_attr" function they allocate space with a malloc
call using ev, then go on to only assign some of the member variables before
passing "ev" on as a parameter to the "process" function therefore "ev"
contains uninitialized memory. Changing the malloc call to zalloc to initialize
all the members of "ev" which gets rid of the warning.

To reproduce this warning, build perf by running:
make -C tools/perf CLANG=1 CC=clang EXTRA_CFLAGS="-fsanitize=memory\
 -fsanitize-memory-track-origins"

(Additionally, llvm might have to be installed and clang might have to
be specified as the compiler - export CC=/usr/bin/clang)

then running:
tools/perf/perf record -o - ls / | tools/perf/perf --no-pager annotate\
 -i - --stdio

Please see the cover letter for why false positive warnings may be
generated.

Signed-off-by: Numfor Mbiziwo-Tiapo <nums@google.com>
Cc: Alexander Shishkin <alexander.shishkin@linux.intel.com>
Cc: Ian Rogers <irogers@google.com>
Cc: Jiri Olsa <jolsa@redhat.com>
Cc: Mark Drayton <mbd@fb.com>
Cc: Namhyung Kim <namhyung@kernel.org>
Cc: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>
Cc: Song Liu <songliubraving@fb.com>
Cc: Stephane Eranian <eranian@google.com>
Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20190724234500.253358-2-nums@google.com
Signed-off-by: Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo <acme@redhat.com>

diff --git a/tools/perf/util/header.c b/tools/perf/util/header.c
index 47877f0f66670c2e94ac33ad48945f45b6071a2e..1903d7ec9797609ee0a56a7f5a0a5505790992b1 100644 (file)
--- a/tools/perf/util/header.c
+++ b/tools/perf/util/header.c
@@ -3646,7 +3646,7 @@ int perf_event__synthesize_attr(struct perf_tool *tool,
        size += sizeof(struct perf_event_header);
        size += ids * sizeof(u64);
 
-       ev = malloc(size);
+       ev = zalloc(size);
 
        if (ev == NULL)
                return -ENOMEM;