Re: Ethernet bridge leaking memory

From: Stephen Hemminger
Date: Thu Nov 10 2005 - 16:06:07 EST


On Thu, 10 Nov 2005 21:13:27 +0100
Kostja Siefen <kostja@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I have a strange problem with ethernet bridging in 2.6.13 which leads to heavy
> slab allocation until memory is completely filled up.
>
> My setup:
>
> HP nx7000 Laptop running Kernel 2.6.13
> - RTL 8139 network interface on board (module 8139too)
> - PC Card Wired LAN Network Interface (module pcnet_cs)
>
> After modprobing bridge and calling
>
> brctl addbr br0
> brctl addif br0 eth0 (RTL 8139)
> brctl addif br0 eth2 (PC Card Wired LAN)
>
> the bridge is up and running and works like a charm. Sending some traffic (1
> MB/s is enough) through that bridge leads to massive kernel memory
> allocation. slabtop reports, that "skbuff_head_cache" and "size-2048" eat up
> all the memory (256 MB). This looks like a memory leak to me.
>
> Even unloading the network modules does not free any memory, a reboot is
> required.
>
> Any ideas?
>


Could you try identifying which flow or driver is leaking?

eth0 ---> eth2
eth0 ---> br0
eth2 ---> br0
eth2 ---> eth0
br0 ---> eth0
br0 ---> eth2

Also try without bridge, it may just be a driver leak



--
Stephen Hemminger <shemminger@xxxxxxxx>
OSDL http://developer.osdl.org/~shemminger
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