Bug 1127

Summary:	fork: Resource temporarily unavailable
Product:	Portable OpenSSH	Reporter:	Avinash <avinashr>
Component:	sshd	Assignee:	Assigned to nobody <unassigned-bugs>
Status:	CLOSED WORKSFORME
Severity:	major	CC:	djm, michel.reverbel.abos
Priority:	P1
Version:	4.2p1
Hardware:	Other
OS:	All

Description Avinash 2005-11-29 05:23:56 AEDT

We have a production running openssh using 3.8.1p1 openssh version. I had noticed by "googling" that this issue was also present in 4.2p1. We have noticed that many times the ssh server complains in the Event Viewer log as follows:
Fork: Resource temporarily unavailable.

This issue goes away (atleast for sometime) when the service is restarted. We have many systems in production already using this service and this could be a potential issue for us.

I have not noticed any issue with memory consumption whatsoever on the machine.

I have attached the log from the event viewer:

Event Type:	Error
Event Source:	sshd
Event Category:	None
Event ID:	0
Date:		8/17/2005
Time:		2:35:40 PM
User:		NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM
Computer:	400T-0940881
Description:
The description for Event ID ( 0 ) in Source ( sshd ) cannot be found. The local computer may not have the necessary registry information or message DLL files to display messages from a remote computer. The following information is part of the event: sshd : PID 836 : error: fork: Resource temporarily unavailable.

Comment 1 Darren Tucker 2005-12-14 00:41:01 AEDT

It might not be memory, it might be some other limit (eg processes).  How many processes do you have running (not just sshd's) when you see the failure?

I don't know how Cygwin's ulimits interact with whatever Windows does natively, but "ulimit -a" gives me a "max user processes" limit of 63.

Comment 2 Damien Miller 2007-05-17 22:59:24 AEST

18 months and no response = no bug

Comment 3 Damien Miller 2008-04-04 09:55:18 AEDT

Close resolved bugs after release.

Comment 4 michel.reverbel.abos 2008-11-04 06:58:17 AEDT

The bug is still here. I have the very same problem. I use the latest version.

Fortunately someone found out the bug context : http://erdelynet.com/archive/ssh-l/2005-05/3183.html

The bug is linked to the use of the "memory overflow" of McAfee antivirus.