Bug 20950

Summary: rpm stops with 'memory alloc returned NULL'
Product: [Retired] Red Hat Linux Reporter: Need Real Name <roel>
Component: rpmAssignee: Jeff Johnson <jbj>
Status: CLOSED NOTABUG QA Contact: David Lawrence <dkl>
Severity: high Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: 7.0   
Target Milestone: ---   
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: i386   
OS: Linux   
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version: Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
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Clone Of: Environment:
Last Closed: 2000-11-16 12:46:14 UTC Type: ---
Regression: --- Mount Type: ---
Documentation: --- CRM:
Verified Versions: Category: ---
oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:
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Description Need Real Name 2000-11-16 12:46:12 UTC 
When trying to install, upgrade or do other rpm-related things, rpm stops
with the message:

memory alloc (2581680408 bytes) returned NULL.

The actual number of bytes is sometimes different:

[root@mordor roel]# helix-update
Distribution: Red Hat Linux 7.0
memory alloc (1420823072 bytes) returned NULL.

I have tried rebuilding the db, but this also fails with the same error.
Comment 1 Jeff Johnson 2000-12-17 01:22:19 UTC 
For unknown reasons, rpm is requesting very large malloc's. Rather than
returning a NULL pointer and segfaulting, rpm simply exits with an error
message.

This is usually caused by asking rpm to install a corrupted package, but without
more details about what operation you are trying to perform, I cannot tell more.

Please reopen with more specific details.