memory leak problem using openssh 3.4p1-263 ons Suse (SLES 8)

[Peter Stuge]

Hi Jerome,

On Tue, Nov 28, 2006 at 03:19:06PM +0100, jerome michot wrote:
> Whenever copying files using ssh (scp) from SLES 8 (openssh
> 3.4p1-263) to another box (e.g SLES 8, Solaris 8, Windows XP), the
> memory of the initial SLES 8 box gets depleted. To make sure this
> is true I use the free command whilst copying and see that the used
> memory reaches 90 / 100%. After the copying is finished this memory
> is never released. No memory tool can tell me what happened to
> it??? Does anyone have an idea?

It is used by Linux for caching pages. Please read
http://sourcefrog.net/weblog/software/linux-kernel/free-mem.html
and possibly also
http://sourcefrog.net/weblog/software/linux-kernel/swap.html

Since the ssh process has exited it can not leak memory. Please do
report any leaks if you find them, however. The characteristics to
look for are that a process uses memory with no relation to the work
being done.

For example; copying a file with scp should not require the entire
file to be buffered, instead chunks of the file are sent after each
other. So if scp uses an amount of memory roughly the size of the
file (test with large files so the overhead is neglectable) right
before it exits, something is wrong.


//Peter