[Valgrind-developers] valgrind goes berserk when it sees ksh's ulimit -a

[Roland M. <rol...@nr...>]

Does anyone know why valgrind goes berserk on such a simple shell
builtin like ulimit?

I tried a simple, plain, innocent ulimit -a within ksh (ksh93 from
20120504) and got this reply:
=======================
valgrind ~/bin/ksh -c 'ulimit -a'
==29376== Memcheck, a memory error detector
==29376== Copyright (C) 2002-2010, and GNU GPL'd, by Julian Seward et al.
==29376== Using Valgrind-3.6.1 and LibVEX; rerun with -h for copyright info
==29376== Command: /home/danny/bin/ksh -c ulimit\ -a
==29376==

valgrind: m_syswrap/syswrap-linux.c:3655
(vgSysWrap_linux_sys_fcntl_before): Assertion 'Unimplemented
functionality' failed.
valgrind: valgrind
==29376==    at 0x3804CF26: ??? (in /usr/lib64/valgrind/memcheck-amd64-linux)
==29376==    by 0x3804D0CC: ??? (in /usr/lib64/valgrind/memcheck-amd64-linux)
==29376==    by 0x380A8D8A: ??? (in /usr/lib64/valgrind/memcheck-amd64-linux)
==29376==    by 0x380881A7: ??? (in /usr/lib64/valgrind/memcheck-amd64-linux)
==29376==    by 0x3808501C: ??? (in /usr/lib64/valgrind/memcheck-amd64-linux)
==29376==    by 0x380861C9: ??? (in /usr/lib64/valgrind/memcheck-amd64-linux)
==29376==    by 0x38095C54: ??? (in /usr/lib64/valgrind/memcheck-amd64-linux)

sched status:
  running_tid=1

Thread 1: status = VgTs_Runnable
==29376==    at 0x53586B8: do_fcntl (in /lib64/libc-2.14.1.so)
==29376==    by 0x5358837: fcntl (in /lib64/libc-2.14.1.so)
==29376==    by 0x5336724: pathconf (in /lib64/libc-2.14.1.so)
==29376==    by 0x551D7C: print (astconf.c:1115)
==29376==    by 0x553024: astgetconf (astconf.c:1477)
==29376==    by 0x553654: astconf (astconf.c:1555)
==29376==    by 0x4A9B41: b_ulimit (ulimit.c:201)
==29376==    by 0x4815B6: sh_exec (xec.c:1367)
==29376==    by 0x418956: exfile (main.c:600)
==29376==    by 0x417B40: sh_main (main.c:373)
==29376==    by 0x416C28: main (pmain.c:45)


Note: see also the FAQ in the source distribution.
It contains workarounds to several common problems.
In particular, if Valgrind aborted or crashed after
identifying problems in your program, there's a good chance
that fixing those problems will prevent Valgrind aborting or
crashing, especially if it happened in m_mallocfree.c.

If that doesn't help, please report this bug to: www.valgrind.org

In the bug report, send all the above text, the valgrind
version, and what OS and version you are using.  Thanks.
=======================

Without valgrind the call to ulimit -a worked as I would expect it:
=======================
ksh -c 'ulimit -a'
address space limit (kbytes)   (-M)  unlimited
core file size (blocks)        (-c)  unlimited
cpu time (seconds)             (-t)  unlimited
data size (kbytes)             (-d)  unlimited
file size (blocks)             (-f)  unlimited
locks                          (-x)  unlimited
locked address space (kbytes)  (-l)  64
message queue size (kbytes)    (-q)  800
nice                           (-e)  0
nofile                         (-n)  1024
nproc                          (-u)  5796
pipe buffer size (bytes)       (-p)  4096
max memory size (kbytes)       (-m)  unlimited
rtprio                         (-r)  0
socket buffer size (bytes)     (-b)  4096
sigpend                        (-i)  5796
stack size (kbytes)            (-s)  8192
swap size (kbytes)             (-w)  not supported
threads                        (-T)  not supported
process size (kbytes)          (-v)  unlimited
=======================
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