Bug ID 1696641: aced core running out of file descriptors

Last Modified: Feb 03, 2026

Affected Product(s):
BIG-IP APM(all modules)

Known Affected Versions:
17.1.1.1, 17.1.1.2, 17.1.1.3, 17.1.1.4, 17.1.2, 17.1.2.1, 17.1.2.2, 17.1.3, 17.1.3.1

Fixed In:
17.5.1.4

Opened: Oct 15, 2024

Severity: 4-Minor

Symptoms

-- The aced process may exhaust available file descriptors over time when using SecurID authentication -- Users are unable to authenticate using RSA SecurID -- Complete APM service outage with "Too many open files" errors in /var/log/apm -- aced process may core and restart

Impact

-- Complete APM service outage. -- All VPN clients unable to establish connections -- SecurID authentication failures. -- Service becomes unstable and stops processing authentication requests.

Conditions

-- BIG-IP APM system configured with SecurID authentication -- aced process runs for extended periods (typically weeks) -- Authentication failures or connection issues between APM and SecurID server may accelerate the issue.

Workaround

Restart the aced process: bigstart restart aced. Perform system failover to restore service temporarily.

Fix Information

The aced daemon now properly cleans up file descriptors (sockets) created during SecurID authentication requests, particularly during error scenarios such as authentication failures. This prevents file descriptor exhaustion that previously caused the aced process to crash and resulted in complete APM service outages.

Behavior Change

Guides & references

K10134038: F5 Bug Tracker Filter Names and Tips