Date: Mon, 22 Sep 1997 17:37:31 +0200 (SAT) From: Graham Wheeler <gram@cdsec.com> To: jmb@FreeBSD.ORG (Jonathan M. Bresler) Cc: hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Bug in malloc/free (was: Memory leak in getservbyXXX?) Message-ID: <199709221537.RAA09859@cdsec.com> In-Reply-To: <199709221528.IAA19479@hub.freebsd.org> from "Jonathan M. Bresler" at Sep 22, 97 08:28:41 am
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> > Graham, > have you been able to create a minimal program that tickles > the bug? if i remember correctly, one suspicion is that > the links that malloc uses to track memory allocations > are being corrupted....creating a circular list. > > jmb Unfortunately not. At present most of our clients are still running the firewall software on FreeBSD 2.1.0, and have no problem (with at least one site of about 2000 users having run the gateway process for about four months without a restart or reboot). We recently upgraded a couple of sites to FreeBSD 2.2.2, mostly to allow Adaptec 2940 support. Of these sites, most are either running proxies only or have fairly low traffic. Only one site has been affected by the bug, with the main distinguishing characteristic being a very heavy network load (there are approximately 5000 users behind this firewall, with quite heavy WWW browser useage taking place). As the loop can occur anywhere where there is a call to malloc, directly or indirectly, we have not been able to isolate it at all. Most of the C++ classes that are used have their own test programs to test them in isolation, but no problems have been found with these. Also, many of the classes used by the gateway program are used in other modules in the firewall; none of these modules have shown any problems. One thing that can be said about the gateway program is that it performs far more dynamic memory allocations and frees than any other module in the firewall (every packet that passes through the gateway, for starters). -- Dr Graham Wheeler E-mail: gram@cdsec.com Citadel Data Security Phone: +27(21)23-6065/6/7 Internet/Intranet Network Specialists Mobile: +27(83)-253-9864 Firewalls/Virtual Private Networks Fax: +27(21)24-3656 Data Security Products WWW: http://www.cdsec.com/
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