Gigantic memory leak in linux-2.6.[789]!

["Kristian Sørensen" <ks@cs.aau.dk>]

Hi all!

After some more testing after the previous post of the OOPS in 
generic_delete_inode, we have now found a gigantic memory leak in Linux 2.6.
[789]. The scenario is the same:

File system: EXT3
Unpack and delete linux-2.6.8.1.tar.bz2 with this Bash while loop:

let "i = 0"
while [ "$i" -lt 10 ]; do
   tar jxf linux-2.6.8.1.tar.bz2;
   rm -fr linux-2.6.8.1;
   let "i = i + 1"
done

When the loop has completed, the system use 124 MB memory more _each_ time.... 
so it is pretty easy to make a denial-of-service attack :-(

We have tried the same test on a RHEL WS 3 host (running a RedHat 2.4 kernel) 
- and there is no problem.


Any deas?

-- 
Kristian Sørensen
- The Umbrella Project
  http://umbrella.sourceforge.net

E-mail: ipqw@users.sf.net, Phone: +45 29723816