AC router 386.10 asd memory usage

[eightiescalling]

After recently jumping a few versions on my AC88U to 386.10, memory usage has gone from being stable to increasing by a few % a day.

Part of this was the networkmap memory usage that's been reported elsewhere and I believe would need Asus to provide a new 386 level GPL to be fixed (I have a cron job resetting that process daily for now).

Another part seems to be the asd process. Putting some basic data capturing in place, I can see that it's gradually growing throughout the day - a ps w going from this at just after midnight

  376 ed        9808 S    asd
  866 ed        9808 S    asd
  867 ed        9808 S    asd

to this by 10pm - it varies a bit bit jumps by > 200 VSZ an hour

  376 ed       15084 S    asd
  866 ed       15084 S    asd
  867 ed       15084 S    asd

There are a number of threads about asd deleting files and leaving HDDs spinning but I've not yet found anything related to memory consumption.

Does anyone have any suggestions on possible causes I can look in to? Or should I just put another cron job in to regularly kill it?

 

[ColinTaylor]

Leave it and see if it stabilizes.

 

[eightiescalling]

Happy to leave it and see but what sort of time frame do you anticipate it might stabilise?

The output above was after putting in the data capture but the first time around seeing it, the 3 processes were up at the 50,000 mark after 2 weeks of uptime.

There's always the theory that memory is there to be used but at that point asd on its own was using over 20% of the routers memory.

 

[eightiescalling]

Thought I'd add this one.

Key dates...
- 25th April - updated to 386.10
- 1st May - scheduled reboot
- 11th May - killed the networkmap process and added the cron job to do that daily.
- 15th May - scheduled reboot

 

[RMerlin]

There`s a known memory leak in asd, can`t be fixed until there is new GPL code available.

 

[heysoundude]

Thought I'd add this one.

Key dates...
- 25th April - updated to 386.10
- 1st May - scheduled reboot
- 11th May - killed the networkmap process and added the cron job to do that daily.
- 15th May - scheduled reboot

And what happens if you update to 386.11?
The same thing was happening with my AC86 under 386.10, and then I upgraded to 386.11 and my JFFS usage jumped noticably, but it seems to have peaked out and stabilized.

 

[sporkington]

I think I'm having a similar issue that started this morning after a reboot. The memory fills up rapidly and the wifi quickly becomes unusable after each reboot. The 'top' command seems to show asd is busy and using ~20% of the memory. I can't login to the router right now to report the firmware version I'm running, but I think it's 2 updates back...

I'll try rebooting and installing the latest firmware to see if that helps. Are there any other suggestions for next steps?

 

[eightiescalling]

There`s a known memory leak in asd, can`t be fixed until there is new GPL code available.

I wondered if something like that might be the case - thanks @RMerlin.

Ironically the only reason I've noticed this is I've been weaning the router off it's weekly reboots so the memory usage tripped a warning threshold. Is the asd process safe to do a killall on or better just reverting back to the weekly reboots?

@heysoundude I'll let you know on 386.11 - I just need a window that doesn't break the family peace!

 

[ColDen]

I think I'm having a similar issue that started this morning after a reboot. The memory fills up rapidly and the wifi quickly becomes unusable after each reboot. The 'top' command seems to show asd is busy and using ~20% of the memory. I can't login to the router right now to report the firmware version I'm running, but I think it's 2 updates back...

I'll try rebooting and installing the latest firmware to see if that helps. Are there any other suggestions for next steps?

As previously suggested by Tech9 for a similar issue, try the following script to recovers your free memory instead of rebooting your router:

free && sync && echo 3 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches && free

Run it a frequently as needed.

 

[RMerlin]

Is the asd process safe to do a killall

IT can be killed, the watchdog will restart it.

 

[L&LD]

@RMerlin, is this at all related to these issues?

Malware turns home routers into proxies for Chinese state-sponsored hackers

Following in the footsteps of VPNFilter, new firmware obscures hackers' endpoints.

arstechnica.com

 

[RMerlin]

@RMerlin, is this at all related to these issues?

Malware turns home routers into proxies for Chinese state-sponsored hackers

Following in the footsteps of VPNFilter, new firmware obscures hackers' endpoints.

arstechnica.com

No.

 

[eightiescalling]

Sorry to bring back this one among the multitude of asd threads but I wanted to confirm a behaviour before posting back...

Strangely, after a reboot asd chews up memory at a rate of 1% to 2% a day. After killing the asd processes though memory stays stable - though I have noticed that sometimes it comes back with 1 asd process and sometimes 3 (possibly linked to whether /jffs/asd is wiped before killing them). Either way though, the watchdog restarted asd process is far more memory friendly than the fresh reboot version so a reasonable workaround until (if) a new GPL is available and added to a new 386 release.

@heysoundude The 386.11 upgrade made no difference to behaviour vs 386.10.