Bug 1701456 - gdb consumes excessive memory processing some debuginfo files.
Summary: gdb consumes excessive memory processing some debuginfo files.
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED EOL
Alias: None
Product: Fedora
Classification: Fedora
Component: gdb
Version: 29
Hardware: Unspecified
OS: Linux
unspecified
high
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Sergio Durigan Junior
QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2019-04-19 05:47 UTC by Ian Dall
Modified: 2019-11-27 22:00 UTC (History)
5 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2019-11-27 22:00:34 UTC
Type: Bug
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)

Description Ian Dall 2019-04-19 05:47:36 UTC
Description of problem:
When processing libxul.so-66.0.3-1.fc29.x86_64.debug, gdb consumes all available memory (at least 15GB) making it impractical to debug firefox.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):

gdb-8.2-6.fc29.x86_64

How reproducible:
Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Install firefox, firefox-debuginfo-66.0.3-1.fc29.x86_64
2. Run firefox
3. Run gdb and attach to one of the "content" firefox processes
4. Watch gdb consume memory and be prepared to kill it before it exhausts available memory. ulimit should work here, but doesn't seem to.

Actual results:
Numerous messages
warning: Loadable section ".note.gnu.property" outside of ELF segments
then nothing while memory usage ( RSS monitored with eg top) ramps up.

gdb never returns a prompt

Expected results:

gdb should print out the current frame and a prompt after a short time and consuming only modest memory.

Additional info:

Attempting to debug gdb with gdb reveals that the runaway gdb is always processing /usr/lib/debug/lib64/firefox/libxul.so-66.0.3-1.fc29.x86_64.debug

After removing (or renaming) this file gdb behaves as expected. There is no run away memory consumption (RSS = 215MB) and the current frame and prompt are printed out as expected. Of course, there is then no symbolic information for an important part of the process.

It is possible that the debug file is malformed which would be a firefox bug, even so ideally gdb would still not choke.

Comment 1 Ben Cotton 2019-10-31 19:35:45 UTC
This message is a reminder that Fedora 29 is nearing its end of life.
Fedora will stop maintaining and issuing updates for Fedora 29 on 2019-11-26.
It is Fedora's policy to close all bug reports from releases that are no longer
maintained. At that time this bug will be closed as EOL if it remains open with a
Fedora 'version' of '29'.

Package Maintainer: If you wish for this bug to remain open because you
plan to fix it in a currently maintained version, simply change the 'version' 
to a later Fedora version.

Thank you for reporting this issue and we are sorry that we were not 
able to fix it before Fedora 29 is end of life. If you would still like 
to see this bug fixed and are able to reproduce it against a later version 
of Fedora, you are encouraged  change the 'version' to a later Fedora 
version prior this bug is closed as described in the policy above.

Although we aim to fix as many bugs as possible during every release's 
lifetime, sometimes those efforts are overtaken by events. Often a 
more recent Fedora release includes newer upstream software that fixes 
bugs or makes them obsolete.

Comment 2 Ben Cotton 2019-11-27 22:00:34 UTC
Fedora 29 changed to end-of-life (EOL) status on 2019-11-26. Fedora 29 is
no longer maintained, which means that it will not receive any further
security or bug fix updates. As a result we are closing this bug.

If you can reproduce this bug against a currently maintained version of
Fedora please feel free to reopen this bug against that version. If you
are unable to reopen this bug, please file a new report against the
current release. If you experience problems, please add a comment to this
bug.

Thank you for reporting this bug and we are sorry it could not be fixed.


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