Re: BUG #2246: Bad malloc interactions: ecpg, openssl

Andrew Klosterman <andrew5(at)ece(dot)cmu(dot)edu> writes:
> I threw in a pthread mutex around the code making the database connections
> for each of my threads. The problem is still there ("corrupted
> double-linked list").

> Even tuning things down and instructing my code to only run a single
> pthread manifests the problem over an SSL connection.

Hmm. Based on that, the problem is starting to smell more like a
garden-variety memory clobber, for instance malloc'ing a chunk smaller
than the data that's later stuffed into it. It might be worth running
the program under something like ElectricFence, which will catch the
offender on-the-spot rather than only later when corruption of malloc's
private data structures is detected.

Looking back at your original message, I wonder if it could be the
combination of ecpg and SSL that triggers it? I'd have thought that
libpq/SSL alone would be pretty well wrung out, but ecpg is not so
widely used.

BTW, you did say this was i386 right? If it were a 64-bit architecture,
I'd be about ready to bet money on the wrong-malloc-size-calculation
theory.

> Tracking down exactly what's tickling the problem in this case could be
> tricky...

Yeah :-(. If you aren't able to narrow it further by yourself, please
try to put together a self-contained test case.

regards, tom lane