massive memory leak when starting tor in the absence of /var/lib/tor
Prior to starting tor, I deleted the entire /var/lib/tor directory by mistake (though I did not know this at the time) and then started tor, checked the logs to see that tor is 100% started and left it there overnight.
Early this morning, I saw that the tor memory footprint has ballooned from the usual 29MB to over 170MB - that was nearly 6 times the normal tor memory consumption in just about 12 hours.
When I checked the logs, I discovered this:
Aug 31 22:37:44.000 [notice] {GENERAL} Tor has successfully opened a circuit. Looks like client functionality is working. Aug 31 22:37:44.000 [notice] {CONTROL} Bootstrapped 100%: Done. Aug 31 23:07:31.000 [warn] {FS} Couldn't open "/var/lib/tor/cached-microdescs.tmp" (/var/lib/tor/cached-microdescs) for writing: No such file or directory Aug 31 23:37:31.000 [warn] {FS} Couldn't open "/var/lib/tor/state.tmp" (/var/lib/tor/state) for writing: No such file or directory Aug 31 23:37:31.000 [warn] {FS} Unable to write state to file "/var/lib/tor/state"; will try again later Aug 31 23:37:31.000 [warn] {FS} Couldn't open "/var/lib/tor/cached-descriptors.new" (/var/lib/tor/cached-descriptors.new) for writing: No such file or directory Aug 31 23:37:31.000 [warn] {FS} Unable to store router descriptor Aug 31 23:37:32.000 [warn] {FS} Couldn't open "/var/lib/tor/cached-microdescs.tmp" (/var/lib/tor/cached-microdescs) for writing: No such file or directory Aug 31 23:52:32.000 [warn] {FS} Couldn't open "/var/lib/tor/cached-descriptors.new" (/var/lib/tor/cached-descriptors.new) for writing: No such file or directory Aug 31 23:52:32.000 [warn] {FS} Unable to store router descriptor Sep 01 00:05:04.000 [warn] {FS} Couldn't open "/var/lib/tor/cached-microdesc-consensus.tmp" (/var/lib/tor/cached-microdesc-consensus) for writing: No such file or directory Sep 01 00:05:05.000 [warn] {FS} Couldn't open "/var/lib/tor/cached-microdescs.new" (/var/lib/tor/cached-microdescs.new) for writing: No such file or directory Sep 01 00:05:05.000 [warn] {DIR} Couldn't append to journal in /var/lib/tor/cached-microdescs.new: No such file or directory Sep 01 00:05:05.000 [warn] {FS} Couldn't open "/var/lib/tor/cached-microdescs.new" (/var/lib/tor/cached-microdescs.new) for writing: No such file or directory [...]
This was, obviously caused by the absence of /var/lib/tor which I deleted by mistake before starting tor last night, but that doesn't explain the 6-fold increase in the tor memory footprint.
For posterity, this is the "normal" tor memory footprint just after start up:
tor 24772 1.0 4.3 19612 12304 ? S Aug31 8:32 /usr/bin/tor -f /etc/tor/tor --defaults-torrc /etc/tor/defaults-torrc
and this was tor's memory footprint when I discovered it this morning:
tor 1895 2.6 40.0 174456 113196 ? R Aug31 20:25 /usr/bin/tor -f /etc/tor/tor --defaults-torrc /etc/tor/defaults-torrc
Trac:
Username: mr-4