This is a memory leak fixed after 1.7.2 that upstream considered doing another Folsom release for: https://bugs.launchpad.net/swift/+bug/1055834 Probably worth cherry-picking it
Actually, nevermind - it looks like we'll have 1.7.3 with the fix now
looks like 1.7.4 will be next folsom RC for Swift
They seem to have difficulty getting a fix that works across two Ubuntus, so I figured it's better to wait for it to settle before trying to find one that's compatible with Fedora and RHEL.
openstack-swift-1.7.4-1.fc18 has been submitted as an update for Fedora 18. https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/openstack-swift-1.7.4-1.fc18