[squid-users] Squid Kerberos helper leaking memory - OpenBSD 6.3

[Alex Rousskov]

On 09/04/2018 09:22 AM, Silamael wrote:

> At moment a helper will call exit(0) after 10000 requests. 

> good to know that there aren't any general objections.


Here is one: Squid is currently not designed to gracefully handle a
helper-initiated exit/death. Helpers that decide to exit may kill
in-progress transactions, and/or may slow down or even kill Squid,
depending, in part, on your Squid version and/or configuration.

AFAICT, there are a few better options for going forward, including:

1. Fixing helper memory leak (just stating the obvious for completeness
sake).

2. Wrapping leaking/exiting helper process into a
non-leaking/non-exiting helper that is going to kill/restart the wrapped
helper after N requests (transparently to Squid).

3. Hacking Squid to kill/restart a helper process after N requests.

4. Enhancing Squid and helper protocol to handle helper-initiated exits.


HTH,

Alex.