Re: 2.6.13.3 Memory leak, names_cache

From: Robert Derr
Date: Thu Oct 06 2005 - 16:18:14 EST


Rick Lindsley wrote:
Are you running with CONFIG_AUDITSYSCALL?

We ran into what sounds like the same problem and we're testing
a patch right now for a names_cache growth which only occurs
with CONFIG_AUDITSYSCALL enabled, and then only every time you
traverse a symlink. In open_namei(), in the do_link section, we call
__do_follow_link() which will bypass the auditing whether it's enabled
or not. However at the end of this section, we will call putname(),
which will *not* actually do a __putname() if auditing is enabled because
it believes it will happen at syscall return. So we slowly lose memory
with each link traversal.

The code in open_namei() is a bit non-intuitive in error conditions,
but the general fix appears to be pretty straightforward. Let me know if
this patch seems to do the trick for you.


Thanks Rick and Linus,

Rick, I put in your patch and after running for 15 minutes the system is holding steady at around 60-80 allocations. Before it would have already have been up to a few thousand. I'll know for sure tomorrow morning.

Thanks again for everyone's help,
Robert J Derr
Weatherflow, Inc.


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