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[PATCH 03/11] remote: transfer ownership of memory in add_url(), etc

From
Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date
Jun 14, 2024, 10:27 UTC
Message-ID
<20240614102722.GC222445@coredump.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To
<20240614102439.GA222287@coredump.intra.peff.net>

Many of the internal functions in remote.c take const strings and store them forever in instances of "struct remote". Since the functions are internal and callers are aware of the convention, this seems to mostly work and not cause leaks. But there are some issues:

  - it's impossible to clear any of the arrays, because the data
    dependencies between them are too muddled (if you free() a string,
    it might also be referenced from another array, causing a
    user-after-free; but if you don't, that might be the last reference,
    causing a leak).
    This is mostly of interest for further refactoring and features, but
    there's at least one spot that's already a problem. In alias_all_urls(),
    we replace elements of remote->url and remote->pushurl with their
    aliased forms, dropping references to the original.
  - sometimes strings from outside callers make their way in. For
    example, calling remote_get("foo") when there is no configured "foo"
    remote will create a remote struct with the single url "foo". But
    we'll do so by holding on to the string passed to remote_get()
    forever.
    In practice I think this works out because we'd usually pass in a
    string that lasts the length of the program (a string literal, or
    argv reference, or other data structure allocated in the main
    function). But it's a rather subtle requirement.

Instead, let's have remote->url and remote->pushurl own their string memory. They'll copy the const strings that are passed in, and callers can stop making their own copies. Likewise, when we overwrite an entry, we can free the memory it points to, fixing the leak mentioned above.

We'll leave the struct members as "const" since they are visible to the outside world, and shouldn't usually be touched. This requires casting on free() for now, but we'll clean that further in a future patch.

Signed-off-by: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
---
Since now we'll always allocate, I don't think it's possible for this to
introduce any memory corruption issues. It _might_ introduce a leak, but
I think I fixed all of the callers.
 remote.c | 33 +++++++++++++++++++--------------
 1 file changed, 19 insertions(+), 14 deletions(-)
diff --git a/remote.c b/remote.c
index fd9d58f820..f7c846865f 100644
--- a/remote.c
+++ b/remote.c
@@ -64,13 +64,13 @@ static char *alias_url(const char *url, struct rewrites *r)
 static void add_url(struct remote *remote, const char *url)
 {
 	ALLOC_GROW(remote->url, remote->url_nr + 1, remote->url_alloc);
-	remote->url[remote->url_nr++] = url;
+	remote->url[remote->url_nr++] = xstrdup(url);
 }
 
 static void add_pushurl(struct remote *remote, const char *pushurl)
 {
 	ALLOC_GROW(remote->pushurl, remote->pushurl_nr + 1, remote->pushurl_alloc);
-	remote->pushurl[remote->pushurl_nr++] = pushurl;
+	remote->pushurl[remote->pushurl_nr++] = xstrdup(pushurl);
 }
 
 static void add_pushurl_alias(struct remote_state *remote_state,
@@ -79,6 +79,7 @@ static void add_pushurl_alias(struct remote_state *remote_state,
 	char *alias = alias_url(url, &remote_state->rewrites_push);
 	if (alias)
 		add_pushurl(remote, alias);
+	free(alias);
 }
 
 static void add_url_alias(struct remote_state *remote_state,
@@ -87,6 +88,7 @@ static void add_url_alias(struct remote_state *remote_state,
 	char *alias = alias_url(url, &remote_state->rewrites);
 	add_url(remote, alias ? alias : url);
 	add_pushurl_alias(remote_state, remote, url);
+	free(alias);
 }
 
 struct remotes_hash_key {
@@ -293,7 +295,7 @@ static void read_remotes_file(struct remote_state *remote_state,
 
 		if (skip_prefix(buf.buf, "URL:", &v))
 			add_url_alias(remote_state, remote,
-				      xstrdup(skip_spaces(v)));
+				      skip_spaces(v));
 		else if (skip_prefix(buf.buf, "Push:", &v))
 			refspec_append(&remote->push, skip_spaces(v));
 		else if (skip_prefix(buf.buf, "Pull:", &v))
@@ -336,7 +338,7 @@ static void read_branches_file(struct remote_state *remote_state,
 	else
 		frag = to_free = repo_default_branch_name(the_repository, 0);
 
-	add_url_alias(remote_state, remote, strbuf_detach(&buf, NULL));
+	add_url_alias(remote_state, remote, buf.buf);
 	refspec_appendf(&remote->fetch, "refs/heads/%s:refs/heads/%s",
 			frag, remote->name);
 
@@ -347,6 +349,7 @@ static void read_branches_file(struct remote_state *remote_state,
 	refspec_appendf(&remote->push, "HEAD:refs/heads/%s", frag);
 	remote->fetch_tags = 1; /* always auto-follow */
 
+	strbuf_release(&buf);
 	free(to_free);
 }
 
@@ -431,15 +434,13 @@ static int handle_config(const char *key, const char *value,
 	else if (!strcmp(subkey, "prunetags"))
 		remote->prune_tags = git_config_bool(key, value);
 	else if (!strcmp(subkey, "url")) {
-		char *v;
-		if (git_config_string(&v, key, value))
-			return -1;
-		add_url(remote, v);
+		if (!value)
+			return config_error_nonbool(key);
+		add_url(remote, value);
 	} else if (!strcmp(subkey, "pushurl")) {
-		char *v;
-		if (git_config_string(&v, key, value))
-			return -1;
-		add_pushurl(remote, v);
+		if (!value)
+			return config_error_nonbool(key);
+		add_pushurl(remote, value);
 	} else if (!strcmp(subkey, "push")) {
 		char *v;
 		if (git_config_string(&v, key, value))
@@ -495,8 +496,10 @@ static void alias_all_urls(struct remote_state *remote_state)
 		for (j = 0; j < remote_state->remotes[i]->pushurl_nr; j++) {
 			char *alias = alias_url(remote_state->remotes[i]->pushurl[j],
 						&remote_state->rewrites);
-			if (alias)
+			if (alias) {
+				free((char *)remote_state->remotes[i]->pushurl[j]);
 				remote_state->remotes[i]->pushurl[j] = alias;
+			}
 		}
 		add_pushurl_aliases = remote_state->remotes[i]->pushurl_nr == 0;
 		for (j = 0; j < remote_state->remotes[i]->url_nr; j++) {
@@ -507,8 +510,10 @@ static void alias_all_urls(struct remote_state *remote_state)
 					remote_state->remotes[i]->url[j]);
 			alias = alias_url(remote_state->remotes[i]->url[j],
 					  &remote_state->rewrites);
-			if (alias)
+			if (alias) {
+				free((char *)remote_state->remotes[i]->url[j]);
 				remote_state->remotes[i]->url[j] = alias;
+			}
 		}
 	}
 }
-- 
2.45.2.937.g0bcb3c087a
Previous: Junio C HamanoNext: Junio C Hamano
Message 9 of 29 in “Cannot override `remote.origin.url` with `-c` option”
  1. Mathew GeorgeJun 9, 2024
  2. Jeff KingJun 11, 2024
  3. Junio C HamanoJun 11, 2024
  4. Jeff KingJun 13, 2024
  5. 0/11 allow overriding remote.*.urlJeff King, Jun 14, 2024
  6. 01/11 archive: fix check for missing urlJeff King, Jun 14, 2024
  7. 02/11 remote: refactor alias_url() memory ownershipJeff King, Jun 14, 2024
  8. Junio C HamanoJun 14, 2024
  9. 03/11 remote: transfer ownership of memory in add_url(), etcJeff King, Jun 14, 2024
  10. Junio C HamanoJun 14, 2024
  11. Jeff KingJun 16, 2024
  12. Junio C HamanoJun 17, 2024
  13. Elijah NewrenJun 25, 2024
  14. 04/11 remote: use strvecs to store remote url/pushurlJeff King, Jun 14, 2024
  15. Elijah NewrenJun 25, 2024
  16. 05/11 remote: simplify url/pushurl selectionJeff King, Jun 14, 2024
  17. Elijah NewrenJun 25, 2024
  18. 06/11 config: document remote.*.url/pushurl interactionJeff King, Jun 14, 2024
  19. Elijah NewrenJun 25, 2024
  20. 07/11 remote: allow resetting url listJeff King, Jun 14, 2024
  21. Elijah NewrenJun 25, 2024
  22. 08/11 t5801: make remote-testgit GIT_DIR setup more robustJeff King, Jun 14, 2024
  23. Elijah NewrenJun 25, 2024
  24. 09/11 t5801: test remote.*.vcs configJeff King, Jun 14, 2024
  25. 10/11 remote: always require at least one url in a remoteJeff King, Jun 14, 2024
  26. 11/11 remote: drop checks for zero-url caseJeff King, Jun 14, 2024
  27. Elijah NewrenJun 25, 2024
  28. Elijah NewrenJun 25, 2024
  29. Jeff KingJun 26, 2024

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