Re: Memory leak in ip_dst_cache

[Kumar S <ps2kumar@yahoo.com>]

----- Original Message -----
From: Eric Dumazet <eric.dumazet@gmail.com>
To: Kumar S <ps2kumar@yahoo.com>
Cc: Neil Horman <nhorman@tuxdriver.com>; netdev <netdev@vger.kernel.org>
Sent: Sunday, September 11, 2011 11:28 PM
Subject: Re: Memory leak in ip_dst_cache

Le dimanche 11 septembre 2011 à 23:07 -0700, Kumar S a écrit :
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: Eric Dumazet <eric.dumazet@gmail.com>
> >To: Kumar S <ps2kumar@yahoo.com>
> >Cc: Neil Horman <nhorman@tuxdriver.com>; netdev <netdev@vger.kernel.org>
> >Sent: Sunday, September 11, 2011 10:40 PM
> Subject: Re: Memory leak in ip_dst_cache
> >
>> Le dimanche 11 septembre 2011 à 20:38 -0700, Kumar S a écrit :
>> 
>> Please dont top post.
>> 
> >>> Thanks Neil. I did try with prink(). I do see entries getting aged
> >>> out, but they are not getting deallocated. This seems to be happening
> >>>because of "ref_cnt". When the route entries are added the ref_cnt is
> >>> set to 1. Looks this is causing trouble clearing the entries
> >>> completely. If I set the ref_cnt to 0, I can see it working. Now I'm
> >>> trying to understand whether this is right. Please let me know if you
> >>> have any thoughts on it.
>> 
> >>I believe I already explained what was happening.
>> 
> >>A tcp socket has a pointer to a dst, so it holds a reference on it, to
> >>make sure no freeing of dst can happen while at least some socket still
> >>can reference dst. (It could reference freed memory and crash)
>> 
> >>As soon as the tcp socket will try to transmit some data, the dst will
> >>be checked and we notice its obsolete : We then release the refcount and
> >>dst pointer.
> >
> >>Later, the garbage collector can notice dst refcount is zero and can
> >>free dst.
> >
> >>If you have dormant tcp sockets (no trafic at all), they hold their dst.
> >>A dormant tcp socket has a pretty more expensive memory cost than its
> >>dst. (Socket structure, dentry, inode, and probably in user land a
> >>thread or process, and data)
> > 
>> Thanks Eric for detailed explanation. You did mention this before.
>> What I see is the cache entries related to the TCP sockets are getting
> >cleared, whenever they age out. But the issue we see here is with the
> >broadcast messages such as SMB messages and network neighbor hood
>> messages. They never get freed. There is no traffic to those
> >destinations from our board. 

>What do you mean ? Your box is a router only ?

>Those SMB messages are going through it ?
 
Our box is a stand-alone system with L2 Quick Engine. This QE forwards all broadcast to the other ports and also a copy to the CPU port.