hostapd memory leak when connecting to Linux wpa_supplicant

[Jouni Malinen]

On Mon, Dec 17, 2007 at 10:45:07AM -0800, Ken Roberts wrote:

> hostapd v0.5.8
> wpa_supplicant v0.5.8
> madwifi v0.9.3.3
> kernel 2.6.21.5 <http://2.6.21.5> (recompiled for minimal drivers)
> 
> I've got 2 geode machines using the madwifi drivers. They worked great 
> for about a week. Unfortunately, hostapd started eating ram and causing 
> "out of memory and no programs to kill" errors on the ap running hostapd.

How did you measure hostapd memory use? It sounds a bit odd if the
kernel would not kill hostpad in such a case if the memory was indeed
leaked in hostapd.

> When connecting to a Linux machine running wpa_supplicant, free ram 
> started dropping like a rock until "out of memory" condition caused a 
> system freeze.

Have you looked at debug log from either hostapd or wpa_supplicant in
this state? Do they show constant action (e.g., new
associations/authentications)?

-- 
Jouni Malinen                                            PGP id EFC895FA