Bug ID 967249: TMM may leak memory early during its startup process, and may continue to do so indefinitely.

Last Modified: Nov 11, 2023

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

Known Affected Versions:
11.6.0, 11.6.1, 11.6.2, 11.6.3, 11.6.3.1, 11.6.3.2, 11.6.3.3, 11.6.3.4, 11.6.4, 11.6.5, 11.6.5.1, 11.6.5.2, 11.6.5.3, 12.1.0, 12.1.1, 12.1.2, 12.1.3, 12.1.3.1, 12.1.3.2, 12.1.3.3, 12.1.3.4, 12.1.3.5, 12.1.3.6, 12.1.3.7, 12.1.4, 12.1.4.1, 12.1.5, 12.1.5.1, 12.1.5.2, 12.1.5.3, 12.1.6, 13.1.0, 13.1.0.1, 13.1.0.2, 13.1.0.3, 13.1.0.4, 13.1.0.5, 13.1.0.6, 13.1.0.7, 13.1.0.8, 13.1.1, 13.1.1.2, 13.1.1.3, 13.1.1.4, 13.1.1.5, 13.1.3, 13.1.3.1, 13.1.3.2, 13.1.3.3, 13.1.3.4, 13.1.3.5, 13.1.3.6, 13.1.4, 13.1.4.1, 13.1.5, 13.1.5.1, 14.1.0, 14.1.0.1, 14.1.0.2, 14.1.0.3, 14.1.0.5, 14.1.0.6, 14.1.2, 14.1.2.1, 14.1.2.2, 14.1.2.3, 14.1.2.4, 14.1.2.5, 14.1.2.6, 14.1.2.7, 14.1.2.8, 14.1.3, 14.1.3.1, 14.1.4, 14.1.4.1, 14.1.4.2, 14.1.4.3, 14.1.4.4, 14.1.4.5, 14.1.4.6, 14.1.5, 14.1.5.1, 14.1.5.2, 14.1.5.3, 14.1.5.4, 14.1.5.6, 15.1.0, 15.1.0.1, 15.1.0.2, 15.1.0.3, 15.1.0.4, 15.1.0.5, 15.1.1, 15.1.2, 15.1.2.1, 15.1.3, 15.1.3.1, 15.1.4, 15.1.4.1, 15.1.5, 15.1.5.1, 15.1.6, 15.1.6.1, 16.0.0, 16.0.0.1, 16.0.1, 16.0.1.1, 16.0.1.2

Fixed In:
16.1.0, 15.1.7

Opened: Nov 24, 2020

Severity: 2-Critical

Symptoms

TMM leaks memory in the packet and xdata components. The aggressiveness of the leak depends on how much traffic TMM receives from the Linux host subsystem.

Impact

TMM leaks memory. If the flow set up during early TMM startup continues to receive a constant stream of new packets, then the flow may live on indefinitely, and TMM may continue to leak memory indefinitely. In the example of remote syslog traffic, this could happen, for instance, if the box keeps logging messages at a sustained rate. Eventually, TMM may be unable to allocate any more memory and crash. Traffic disrupted while tmm restarts.

Conditions

- A BIG-IP system running more than 1 TMM instance. - Early during its startup process, TMM begins receiving traffic from the Linux host subsystem destined to the network (e.g., remote syslog traffic routed to its destination through TMM). - Depending on the system's configuration, TMM attempts to set up flow forwarding for the aforementioned traffic. This may happen, for instance, if the egress VLAN is configured for 'cmp-hash src-ip'. - TMM hasn't fully completed its startup process yet.

Workaround

You can work around this issue by ensuring that TMM does not receive any traffic from the Linux host subsystem for forwarding during early startup. In the example of remote syslog destinations, you could specify the management IP address of the system as the source IP address for the traffic, thus forcing the traffic out of the management port instead of TMM. This implies the management port has a suitable working route to the destination.

Fix Information

None

Behavior Change

Guides & references

K10134038: F5 Bug Tracker Filter Names and Tips