Arch Linux

boast

Member

Registered: 2010-09-28

Posts: 219

[SOLVED] X memory usage blows up with ssh x11 forwarding

My X ends up using almost 1gb of ram as I use ssh with x11 forwarding to run programs. Even after I quit the programs, the memory usage never drops back down again.

I use "ssh -c arcfour -YC server"

SOLVED: Seems its an issue with the arcfour compression, using blowfish-cbc instead

Last edited by boast (2013-05-03 18:06:57)

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Asus M4A785TD-V ;; Phenom II X4 @ 3.9GHz ;; Ripjaws 12GB DDR3-1600 ;; 128GB Samsung 830 ;; MSI GTX460 v2 w/ blob ;; Arch Linux + KDE 4.x

schmidtbag

Member

From: NH, USA

Registered: 2011-02-08

Posts: 337

Re: [SOLVED] X memory usage blows up with ssh x11 forwarding

Do all forwarded programs inflate like this?  I don't use arcfour but maybe the program just has memory leak problems.  Also keep in mind it might be cached memory - Linux doesn't let go of anything in memory until it needs to.  Since memory erases so quickly, there isn't much of a need to keep it clean.

boast

Member

Registered: 2010-09-28

Posts: 219

Re: [SOLVED] X memory usage blows up with ssh x11 forwarding

Do all forwarded programs inflate like this?  I don't use arcfour but maybe the program just has memory leak problems.  Also keep in mind it might be cached memory - Linux doesn't let go of anything in memory until it needs to.  Since memory erases so quickly, there isn't much of a need to keep it clean.

My work laptop only has 4gb of ram, and I only have 1.7gb set for my arch linux VM. This is my setup right now with no ssh running, htop: http://i.imgur.com/GlJSLom.png
I have to keep making my swap bigger and bigger to keep the system from locking up

I'll try changing the compression to see if it helps

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Asus M4A785TD-V ;; Phenom II X4 @ 3.9GHz ;; Ripjaws 12GB DDR3-1600 ;; 128GB Samsung 830 ;; MSI GTX460 v2 w/ blob ;; Arch Linux + KDE 4.x

lucke

Member

From: Poland

Registered: 2004-11-30

Posts: 4,018

Re: [SOLVED] X memory usage blows up with ssh x11 forwarding

What does xrestop show?

schmidtbag

Member

From: NH, USA

Registered: 2011-02-08

Posts: 337

Re: [SOLVED] X memory usage blows up with ssh x11 forwarding

Oh you didn't mention your system would lock up.  Yeah, that's definitely a memory leak, but I have a feeling it's specific to arcfour since X forwarding has been around for a while and such a bug would have been ironed out by now.

See if there's memory leaks when running the command locally.  There's a possibility it's streaming errors, though I don't see why that'd use up so much RAM.