Bug 148806 – memory leak in kernel 2.6.16-r7

• Product: Gentoo Linux
• Status: RESOLVED FIXED

[Description Steven 2006-09-23 09:56:31 UTC]

Problem:
When QoS is compiled in my kernel and I copy a large file via FTP to a server, my system freezes after a couple of minutes.
Trying to find the problem, I noticed my LowFree-memory (in /proc/meminfo) decreased quiet fast to a very low value while uploading until my system freezes.

I recompiled my kernel without QoS, and the problem disappeared. I still noticed a slight decrease in LowFree-mem, but very small compared to the previous situation.

Reproduce bug:
- Compile kernel gentoo-sources-2.6.16-r7 with QoS and all subbranches compiled in the kernel
- Create large file (1 GB)
- scp or ftp it to another computer while watching /proc/meminfo

emerge --info:
Portage 2.1 (default-linux/x86/no-nptl, gcc-3.4.6, glibc-2.3.6-r3, 2.6.16-gentoo-r7 i686)
=================================================================
System uname: 2.6.16-gentoo-r7 i686 Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 2.00GHz
Gentoo Base System version 1.6.14
app-admin/eselect-compiler: [Not Present]
dev-lang/python:     2.4.2
dev-python/pycrypto: 2.0.1-r5
dev-util/ccache:     [Not Present]
dev-util/confcache:  [Not Present]
sys-apps/sandbox:    1.2.17
sys-devel/autoconf:  2.13, 2.59-r7
sys-devel/automake:  1.4_p6, 1.5, 1.6.3, 1.7.9-r1, 1.8.5-r3, 1.9.6-r1
sys-devel/binutils:  2.16.1-r2
sys-devel/gcc-config: 1.3.13-r2
sys-devel/libtool:   1.5.22
virtual/os-headers:  2.6.11-r2
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86"
AUTOCLEAN="yes"
CBUILD="i386-pc-linux-gnu"
CFLAGS="-O2 -mtune=i686 -pipe -mno-tls-direct-seg-refs"
CHOST="i386-pc-linux-gnu"
CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/lib/X11/xkb"
CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/env.d /etc/gconf /etc/terminfo"
CXXFLAGS="-O2 -mtune=i686 -pipe -mno-tls-direct-seg-refs"
DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles"
FEATURES="autoconfig distlocks metadata-transfer sandbox sfperms strict"
GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://distfiles.gentoo.org http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/gentoo"
LANG="en_US.iso8859-1@euro"
LC_ALL="en_US.ISO-8859-1@euro"
LINGUAS="en_US.ISO-8859-1@euro"
PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages"
PORTAGE_RSYNC_OPTS="--recursive --links --safe-links --perms --times --compress --force --whole-file --delete --delete-after --stats --timeout=180 --exclude='/distfiles' --exclude='/local' --exclude='/packages'"
PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp"
PORTDIR="/usr/portage"
SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage"
USE="x86 X acpi alsa apache2 apm bash-completion berkdb bitmap-fonts bluetooth cdr cgi cli crypt cups curl divx dlloader dri dv dvdr eds emboss encode esd firefox font-server foomaticdb fortran ftp gd gdbm gif gimp gnome gpm gstreamer gtk gtk2 imap imlib isdnlog java jpeg kde libg++ libwww mad mikmod motif mp3 mpeg mysql ncurses nfs nls nsplugin odbc ogg opengl oss pam pcre perl png pppd python qt3 qt4 quicktime readline reflection samba sdl session snmp spell spl ssl tcpd tiff truetype truetype-fonts type1-fonts urandom usb vorbis win32codecs xine xml xmms xorg xprint xv xvid zip zlib elibc_glibc input_devices_keyboard input_devices_mouse input_devices_evdev kernel_linux linguas_en_US.ISO-8859-1@euro userland_GNU video_cards_apm video_cards_ark video_cards_ati video_cards_chips video_cards_cirrus video_cards_cyrix video_cards_dummy video_cards_fbdev video_cards_glint video_cards_i128 video_cards_i740 video_cards_i810 video_cards_imstt video_cards_mga video_cards_neomagic video_cards_nsc video_cards_nv video_cards_rendition video_cards_s3 video_cards_s3virge video_cards_savage video_cards_siliconmotion video_cards_sis video_cards_sisusb video_cards_tdfx video_cards_tga video_cards_trident video_cards_tseng video_cards_v4l video_cards_vesa video_cards_vga video_cards_via video_cards_vmware video_cards_voodoo"
Unset:  CTARGET, EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS, INSTALL_MASK, LDFLAGS, MAKEOPTS, PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS, PORTDIR_OVERLAY

I'll post a link to some other files within a few minutes (meminfo, slabinfo, /proc/config.gz)

[Comment 1 Steven 2006-09-23 09:59:41 UTC]

Created attachment 97871 [details]
slabinfo before ftp upload

/proc/slabinfo before FTP upload, with QoS compiled in kernel

[Comment 2 Steven 2006-09-23 10:01:24 UTC]

Created attachment 97873 [details]
slabinfo after ftp upload

[Comment 3 Steven 2006-09-23 10:15:13 UTC]

Created attachment 97876 [details]
/proc/config.gz

[Comment 4 Daniel Drake (RETIRED) 2006-09-23 11:25:00 UTC]

2.6.16 is no longer supported. Please reproduce on 2.6.17, or even better, 2.6.18.

[Comment 5 Steven 2006-09-23 13:41:33 UTC]

2.6.18 seems OK
Didn't notice 2.6.16 wasn't supported anymore; sorry...