Alibaba Cloud Linux:How to resolve a memory leak in polkit in Alibaba Cloud Linux 2?

Affected versions

The issue affects instances running:

• Alibaba Cloud Linux 2 image versions earlier than aliyun_2_1903_x64_20G_alibase_20211216.vhd

• Kernel versions earlier than 4.19.91-25.1.al7.x86_64

Root cause

The polkit component has a memory leak triggered during agent authentication cancellation. The fix is included in polkit-0.112-26.2.al7. For details, see Fix a memory leak on agent authentication cancellation.

Diagnose the issue

Before applying the fix, confirm that polkit is consuming excessive memory.

Run the following command to check polkit's current memory usage:

ps aux --sort=-%mem | grep polkit

If the %MEM or RSS column shows high values that continue to grow over time, the instance is affected.

Fix the issue

Upgrade polkit to polkit-0.112-26.2.al7:

yum update polkit

Verify the fix

After the upgrade, confirm the installed version:

rpm -q polkit

The output should show polkit-0.112-26.2.al7 or a later version, which confirms the fix has been applied.