[Libguestfs] libnbd completion callback question

I noticed while reading the code that we have a documentation hole that may cause memory leaks for clients that are unaware, in relation to completion callbacks. The situation arises as follows: for all commands with a completion callback, I checked that the code has clean semantics: either nbd_aio_FOO() returns -1 and we never call the callback cleanup, or nbd_aio_FOO() returns a cookie and we call the callback cleanup when the command is retired. And since completion callbacks can only ever be passed to nbd_aio_FOO() functions, it is simple enough to document that when nbd_aio_FOO() fails (possible when calling them while the state machine is in the wrong state, or with invalid flags, or a command that the server is unwilling to accept - all things we can check client-side without traffic to the server), then the callback function was NOT registered, and the user must clean any resources then and there to avoid a leak. Only when nbd_aio_FOO() succeeds will the responsibility for cleanup be handled by the callback. But for nbd_block_status and nbd_pread_structured, we have a second callback. And _these_ callbacks have a problem: we can return -1 for two different reasons, either because the command was never attempted (nbd_aio_FOO failed) and so the callback will never be cleaned, or because the command got sent to the server and the server failed it (the callback WILL be cleaned). As this is ambiguous, it risks being a memory leak. So I think we have a bug in our code, and need to strengthen our promise of whether the cleanup callback will be called, regardless of success or failure, while still minimizing any incompat changes that might cause a double-free for existing clients. -- Eric Blake, Principal Software Engineer Red Hat, Inc. +1-919-301-3226 Virtualization: qemu.org | libvirt.org