2013-07-06

alierak: (Default)
[personal profile] alierak2013-07-06 07:33 pm
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Memory leak heads up

Anyone remember when we deployed some servers with Perl 5.10.0 and saw all sorts of problems with memory usage due to a memory leak in map? I ended up drastically reducing the number of requests each Apache process would handle before it exits, [staff profile] mark and I set up various cron jobs that would unceremoniously kill off workers every so often, etc. As we upgraded and phased out older servers, I think it was no longer a problem (e.g., web08 had Perl 5.10.1).

Well, it's looking like there's another Perl memory leak on the newest group of servers. They're running 5.14.2, and things like synsuck and resolve-extacct (really?) are using several gigs of RAM after a few days. I've set up an array of lovely new worker-restarting cron jobs, and I think this is the relevant Perl bug: perl: memory leak in Encode::decode. It is likely that we'll be able to patch this in production.

I guess if you have a choice, just skip to 5.14.4.