From: Breno Leitao <leitao@debian.org>
To: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>,
Catalin Marinas <catalin.marinas@arm.com>,
David Hildenbrand <david@kernel.org>
Cc: Lorenzo Stoakes <ljs@kernel.org>,
"Liam R. Howlett" <Liam.Howlett@oracle.com>,
Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@kernel.org>,
Mike Rapoport <rppt@kernel.org>,
Suren Baghdasaryan <surenb@google.com>,
Michal Hocko <mhocko@suse.com>,
linux-mm@kvack.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
kernel-team@meta.com, Breno Leitao <leitao@debian.org>
Subject: [PATCH] mm: kmemleak: add CONFIG_DEBUG_KMEMLEAK_VERBOSE build option
Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2026 04:12:13 -0700 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20260323-kmemleak_report-v1-1-ba2cdd9c11b9@debian.org> (raw)
Add a Kconfig option to default kmemleak verbose mode on at build time.
This option depends on DEBUG_KMEMLEAK_AUTO_SCAN since verbose reporting
is only meaningful when the automatic scanning thread is running.
When enabled, kmemleak prints full details (backtrace, hex dump, address)
of unreferenced objects to dmesg as they are detected during scanning,
removing the need to manually read /sys/kernel/debug/kmemleak.
Making this a compile-time option rather than a boot parameter allows
debug kernel flavors to enable verbose kmemleak reporting by default
without requiring changes to boot arguments. A machine can simply swap
to a debug kernel and benefit from kmemleak reporting automatically.
By surfacing leak reports directly in dmesg, they are automatically
forwarded through any kernel logging infrastructure and can be easily
captured by log aggregation tooling, making it practical to monitor
memory leaks across large fleets.
The verbose setting can still be toggled at runtime via
/sys/module/kmemleak/parameters/verbose.
Signed-off-by: Breno Leitao <leitao@debian.org>
---
mm/Kconfig.debug | 11 +++++++++++
mm/kmemleak.c | 2 +-
2 files changed, 12 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
diff --git a/mm/Kconfig.debug b/mm/Kconfig.debug
index 7638d75b27db8..91b3e027b7535 100644
--- a/mm/Kconfig.debug
+++ b/mm/Kconfig.debug
@@ -297,6 +297,17 @@ config DEBUG_KMEMLEAK_AUTO_SCAN
If unsure, say Y.
+config DEBUG_KMEMLEAK_VERBOSE
+ bool "Default kmemleak to verbose mode"
+ depends on DEBUG_KMEMLEAK_AUTO_SCAN
+ help
+ Say Y here to have kmemleak print unreferenced object details
+ (backtrace, hex dump, address) to dmesg when new memory leaks are
+ detected during automatic scanning. This can also be toggled at
+ runtime via /sys/module/kmemleak/parameters/verbose.
+
+ If unsure, say N.
+
config PER_VMA_LOCK_STATS
bool "Statistics for per-vma locks"
depends on PER_VMA_LOCK
diff --git a/mm/kmemleak.c b/mm/kmemleak.c
index fa8201e232221..2eff0d6b622b6 100644
--- a/mm/kmemleak.c
+++ b/mm/kmemleak.c
@@ -241,7 +241,7 @@ static int kmemleak_skip_disable;
/* If there are leaks that can be reported */
static bool kmemleak_found_leaks;
-static bool kmemleak_verbose;
+static bool kmemleak_verbose = IS_ENABLED(CONFIG_DEBUG_KMEMLEAK_VERBOSE);
module_param_named(verbose, kmemleak_verbose, bool, 0600);
static void kmemleak_disable(void);
---
base-commit: 785f0eb2f85decbe7c1ef9ae922931f0194ffc2e
change-id: 20260323-kmemleak_report-a9a103ee0c8c
Best regards,
--
Breno Leitao <leitao@debian.org>
next reply other threads:[~2026-03-23 11:12 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 5+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2026-03-23 11:12 Breno Leitao [this message]
2026-03-24 0:49 ` SeongJae Park
2026-03-24 7:42 ` Vlastimil Babka (SUSE)
2026-03-24 13:07 ` Lorenzo Stoakes (Oracle)
2026-03-25 17:24 ` Catalin Marinas
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