Ruby/Glibc coredump (double free or corruption)

Question

I am using a distributed continuous integration tool which I have written by myself in Ruby. It uses a fork of Mike Perham's "politics" for distribution of the tasks. The "politics" module is using threads for the mDNS part.

Every now and then I encounter a core dump which I don't understand:

*** glibc detected *** ruby: double free or corruption (fasttop): 0x086d8600 ***
======= Backtrace: =========
/lib/libc.so.6[0xb7cef494]
/lib/libc.so.6[0xb7cf0b93]
/lib/libc.so.6(cfree+0x6d)[0xb7cf3c7d]
/usr/lib/libruby18.so.1.8[0xb7e8adf8]
/usr/lib/libruby18.so.1.8(ruby_xmalloc+0x85)[0xb7e8b395]
/usr/lib/libruby18.so.1.8[0xb7e5065e]
...
/usr/lib/libruby18.so.1.8[0xb7e717f4]
/usr/lib/libruby18.so.1.8[0xb7e74296]
/usr/lib/libruby18.so.1.8(rb_yield+0x27)[0xb7e7fb57]
======= Memory map: ========
...

I am running on Gentoo and have rebuild Ruby and Glibc with "-gdbg" and turned off the striping to get a meaningful core:

...
Core was generated by `ruby /home/develop/dcc/bin/dcc-worker'.
Program terminated with signal 6, Aborted.
#0  0xb7f20410 in __kernel_vsyscall ()
(gdb) bt
#0  0xb7f20410 in __kernel_vsyscall ()
#1  0xb7cacb60 in *__GI___open_catalog (cat_name=0x6 <Address 0x6 out of bounds>, nlspath=0xbf9d6f00 " ", env_var=0x0, catalog=0x1) at open_catalog.c:237
#2  0xb7cae498 in __sigdelset (set=0x6) from /lib/libc.so.6
#3  *__GI_sigfillset (set=0x6) at ../signal/sigfillset.c:42
#4  0xb7ce952d in freopen64 (filename=0x2 <Address 0x2 out of bounds>, mode=0xb7db02c8 "\" total=\"%zu\" count=\"%zu\"/>\n", fp=0x9) at freopen64.c:47
#5  0xb7cef494 in _IO_str_init_readonly (sf=0x86d8600, ptr=0xb7eef5a9 "te\213V\b\205\322\017\204\220", size=-1210273804) at strops.c:88
#6  0xb7cf0b93 in mALLINFo (av=0xb) at malloc.c:5865
#7  0xb7cf3c7d in __libc_calloc (n=141395456, elem_size=3214793136) at malloc.c:4019
#8  0xb7e8adf8 in ?? () at gc.c:1390 from /usr/lib/libruby18.so.1.8
#9  0x086d8600 in ?? ()
#10 0xb7e89400 in rb_gc_disable () at gc.c:256
#11 0xb7e8b395 in add_freelist () at gc.c:1087
#12 gc_sweep () at gc.c:1186
#13 garbage_collect () at gc.c:1524
#14 0xb7e5065e in ?? () from /usr/lib/libruby18.so.1.8
#15 0x00000340 in ?? ()
#16 0x00000000 in ?? ()
(gdb) 

Hmm??? For me this looks like it's totally Ruby intern. On other "double free or corruption" problems here at stackoverflow I have seen that maybe threads are part of the problem.

Also the problem does not occur at the exactly same position. I have another backtrace which is much longer but the crash is also in garbage_collect but with a slightly different path:

(gdb) bt
#0  0xffffe430 in __kernel_vsyscall ()
#1  0xf7c8b8c0 in *__GI_raise (sig=6) at ../nptl/sysdeps/unix/sysv/linux/raise.c:64
#2  0xf7c8d1f5 in *__GI_abort () at abort.c:88
#3  0xf7cc7e35 in __libc_message (do_abort=2, fmt=0xf7d8daa8 "*** glibc detected *** %s: %s: 0x%s ***\n") at ../sysdeps/unix/sysv/linux/libc_fatal.c:170
#4  0xf7ccdd24 in malloc_printerr (action=2, str=0xf7d8dbec "double free or corruption (fasttop)", ptr=0x911f5d0) at malloc.c:6197
#5  0xf7ccf403 in _int_free (av=0xf7daa380, p=0x911f5c8) at malloc.c:4750
#6  0xf7cd24ad in *__GI___libc_free (mem=0x911f5d0) at malloc.c:3716
#7  0xf7e68768 in obj_free () at gc.c:1366
#8  gc_sweep () at gc.c:1174
#9  garbage_collect () at gc.c:1524
#10 0xf7e68be5 in rb_newobj () at gc.c:436
#11 0xf7eb9840 in str_alloc (klass=0) at string.c:67
... (150 lines of rb_eval/call/yield etc.)

Has anyone a suggestion how to isolate and maybe solve this problem?

Answer 1

Quick, easy, and not as helpful: export MALLOC_CHECK_=2. This causes glibc to do some extra level of checking during free(), to avoid heap corruption. It will abort() and give a core dump as soon as it detects corruption, instead of waiting until there's an actual problem caused by the corruption.

Not quite as quick and easy, but much more helpful (if you get it working): valgrind.