[Bug]: Possible memory leak in Netdata agent v2.8.2 on Ubuntu 24.04 #21449
Description
Bug description
After the agent has been running for some time, I receive Netdata alarm emails that 90% of RAM is in use. When I check with htop, around 30 GB of memory is held by Netdata-related processes. Restarting the Netdata service immediately releases the memory again, which suggests a leak in the agent or one of its components.
I collected RSS data for the main netdata process every 10 minutes over ~22 hours. The RSS grows fairly steadily from ~5.7 GB to >9 GB during that time, with only occasional small drops.
Expected behavior
- Netdata’s memory usage should stabilize after some time under a steady workload.
- It should not continuously grow until it occupies tens of gigabytes of RAM on a 64 GB system.
- Regularly restarting the Netdata agent to reclaim memory should not be necessary.
Steps to reproduce
-
Install Netdata using the Cloud install snippet
- Go to the Netdata Cloud web UI.
- Copy the installation snippet/command shown there.
- Run it on the host to install Netdata (which results in Netdata
v2.8.2,binpkg-debon Ubuntu 24.04).
-
Let Netdata run for many hours
- Keep the system under its normal workload (e.g. overnight and longer).
- Ensure Netdata Cloud is connected so that Cloud alerts are active.
-
Monitor the RSS of the main
netdataprocess-
In a shell, log the memory usage every 10 minutes:
while true; do date ps -o pid,cmd,rss,vsz --no-headers "$(pidof netdata)" sleep 600 done
-
Observe that the RSS starts around ~5–6 GB and steadily increases over many hours (in my case to >9 GB within ~22 hours), with only small occasional drops.
-
-
Observe total memory usage and Netdata Cloud alerts
- After running long enough (days), Netdata Cloud sends alerts that 90% of RAM is in use.
htopshows that Netdata-related processes in total are using roughly 30 GB of RAM on the 64 GB system.
-
Restart Netdata and observe memory being freed
-
Restart only the Netdata service:
systemctl restart netdata
-
Check memory usage again with
htoporps:- The previously used tens of GB of RAM are immediately freed.
- If you let Netdata run again, memory usage starts lower and then grows over time in a similar pattern.
-
Installation method
kickstart.sh
System info
Linux RR-Main 6.8.0-88-generic #89-Ubuntu SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Sat Oct 11 01:02:46 UTC 2025 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
/etc/lsb-release:DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
/etc/lsb-release:DISTRIB_RELEASE=24.04
/etc/lsb-release:DISTRIB_CODENAME=noble
/etc/lsb-release:DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 24.04.1 LTS"
/etc/os-release:PRETTY_NAME="Ubuntu 24.04.1 LTS"
/etc/os-release:NAME="Ubuntu"
/etc/os-release:VERSION_ID="24.04"
/etc/os-release:VERSION="24.04.1 LTS (Noble Numbat)"
/etc/os-release:VERSION_CODENAME=noble
/etc/os-release:ID=ubuntu
/etc/os-release:ID_LIKE=debian
/etc/os-release:UBUNTU_CODENAME=noble
/etc/os-release:LOGO=ubuntu-logoNetdata build info
time=2025-12-11T14:45:27.006+01:00 comm=netdata source=daemon level=notice errno="2, No such file or directory" tid=1395836 msg="CONFIG: cannot load user config '/etc/netdata/stream.conf'. Will try stock config."
time=2025-12-11T14:45:27.007+01:00 comm=netdata source=collector level=error errno="13, Permission denied" tid=1395836 msg="Runtime directory '/tmp/netdata' is not writable, falling back to '/tmp'"
Packaging:
Netdata Version ____________________________________________ : v2.8.2
Installation Type __________________________________________ : binpkg-deb
Package Architecture _______________________________________ : x86_64
Package Distro _____________________________________________ : ubuntu 24.04
Configure Options __________________________________________ : cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo -DCMAKE_C_STANDARD=11 -DCMAKE_CXX_STANDARD=14 -DBUILD_SHARED_LIBS=OFF -DCMAKE_C_FLAGS=' -fexceptions -fno-omit-frame-pointer -funwind-tables -fasynchronous-unwind-tables' -DCMAKE_CXX_FLAGS=' -fexceptions -fno-omit-frame-pointer -funwind-tables -fasynchronous-unwind-tables' -DCMAKE_COMPILE_DEFINITIONS='_GNU_SOURCE' -DCMAKE_EXE_LINKER_FLAGS=' -fexceptions -rdynamic' -DCMAKE_SHARED_LINKER_FLAGS=''
Default Directories:
User Configurations ________________________________________ : /etc/netdata
Stock Configurations _______________________________________ : /usr/lib/netdata/conf.d
Ephemeral Databases (metrics data, metadata) _______________ : /var/cache/netdata
Permanent Databases ________________________________________ : /var/lib/netdata
Plugins ____________________________________________________ : /usr/libexec/netdata/plugins.d
Static Web Files ___________________________________________ : /usr/share/netdata/web
Log Files __________________________________________________ : /var/log/netdata
Lock Files _________________________________________________ : /var/lib/netdata/lock
Home _______________________________________________________ : /var/lib/netdata
Operating System:
Kernel _____________________________________________________ : Linux
Kernel Version _____________________________________________ : 6.8.0-88-generic
Operating System ___________________________________________ : Ubuntu
Operating System ID ________________________________________ : ubuntu
Operating System ID Like ___________________________________ : debian
Operating System Version ___________________________________ : 24.04.1 LTS (Noble Numbat)
Operating System Version ID ________________________________ : none
Detection __________________________________________________ : /etc/os-release
Hardware:
CPU Cores __________________________________________________ : 16
CPU Frequency ______________________________________________ : 2246000000
RAM Bytes __________________________________________________ : 67423514624
Disk Capacity ______________________________________________ : 2199023255552
CPU Architecture ___________________________________________ : x86_64
Virtualization Technology __________________________________ : kvm
Virtualization Detection ___________________________________ : systemd-detect-virt
Container:
Container __________________________________________________ : none
Container Detection ________________________________________ : systemd-detect-virt
Container Orchestrator _____________________________________ : none
Container Operating System _________________________________ : none
Container Operating System ID ______________________________ : none
Container Operating System ID Like _________________________ : none
Container Operating System Version _________________________ : none
Container Operating System Version ID ______________________ : none
Container Operating System Detection _______________________ : none
Features:
Built For __________________________________________________ : Linux
Netdata Cloud ______________________________________________ : YES
Health (trigger alerts and send notifications) _____________ : YES
Streaming (stream metrics to parent Netdata servers) _______ : YES
Back-filling (of higher database tiers) ____________________ : YES
Replication (fill the gaps of parent Netdata servers) ______ : YES
Streaming and Replication Compression ______________________ : YES (zstd lz4 gzip)
Contexts (index all active and archived metrics) ___________ : YES
Tiering (multiple dbs with different metrics resolution) ___ : YES (5)
Machine Learning ___________________________________________ : YES
Memory Allocator ___________________________________________ : system
Database Engines:
dbengine (compression) _____________________________________ : YES (zstd lz4)
alloc ______________________________________________________ : YES
ram ________________________________________________________ : YES
none _______________________________________________________ : YES
Connectivity Capabilities:
ACLK (Agent-Cloud Link: MQTT over WebSockets over TLS) _____ : YES
static (Netdata internal web server) _______________________ : YES
WebRTC (experimental) ______________________________________ : NO
Native HTTPS (TLS Support) _________________________________ : YES
TLS Host Verification ______________________________________ : YES
Libraries:
LZ4 (extremely fast lossless compression algorithm) ________ : YES
ZSTD (fast, lossless compression algorithm) ________________ : YES
zlib (lossless data-compression library) ___________________ : YES
Brotli (generic-purpose lossless compression algorithm) ____ : NO
protobuf (platform-neutral data serialization protocol) ____ : YES (system)
OpenSSL (cryptography) _____________________________________ : YES
libdatachannel (stand-alone WebRTC data channels) __________ : NO
JSON-C (lightweight JSON manipulation) _____________________ : YES
libcap (Linux capabilities system operations) ______________ : NO
libcrypto (cryptographic functions) ________________________ : YES
libyaml (library for parsing and emitting YAML) ____________ : YES
libmnl (library for working with netfilter) ________________ : YES
stacktraces (library for getting stack traces) _____________ : libbacktrace (mmap, threads, data)
Plugins:
apps (monitor processes) ___________________________________ : YES
cgroups (monitor containers and VMs) _______________________ : YES
cgroup-network (associate interfaces to CGROUPS) ___________ : YES
proc (monitor Linux systems) _______________________________ : YES
tc (monitor Linux network QoS) _____________________________ : YES
diskspace (monitor Linux mount points) _____________________ : YES
freebsd (monitor FreeBSD systems) __________________________ : NO
macos (monitor MacOS systems) ______________________________ : NO
windows (monitor Windows systems) __________________________ : NO
statsd (collect custom application metrics) ________________ : YES
timex (check system clock synchronization) _________________ : YES
idlejitter (check system latency and jitter) _______________ : YES
bash (support shell data collection jobs - charts.d) _______ : YES
debugfs (kernel debugging metrics) _________________________ : YES
cups (monitor printers and print jobs) _____________________ : YES
ebpf (monitor system calls) ________________________________ : YES
freeipmi (monitor enterprise server H/W) ___________________ : YES
network-viewer (monitor TCP/UDP IPv4/6 sockets) ____________ : YES
systemd-journal (monitor journal logs) _____________________ : YES
windows-events (monitor Windows events) ____________________ : NO
nfacct (gather netfilter accounting) _______________________ : YES
perf (collect kernel performance events) ___________________ : YES
slabinfo (monitor kernel object caching) ___________________ : YES
Xen ________________________________________________________ : YES
Xen VBD Error Tracking _____________________________________ : NO
Exporters:
AWS Kinesis ________________________________________________ : NO
GCP PubSub _________________________________________________ : NO
MongoDB ____________________________________________________ : YES
Prometheus (OpenMetrics) Exporter __________________________ : YES
Prometheus Remote Write ____________________________________ : YES
Graphite ___________________________________________________ : YES
Graphite HTTP / HTTPS ______________________________________ : YES
JSON _______________________________________________________ : YES
JSON HTTP / HTTPS __________________________________________ : YES
OpenTSDB ___________________________________________________ : YES
OpenTSDB HTTP / HTTPS ______________________________________ : YES
All Metrics API ____________________________________________ : YES
Shell (use metrics in shell scripts) _______________________ : YES
Debug/Developer Features:
Trace All Netdata Allocations (with charts) ________________ : NO
Developer Mode (more runtime checks, slower) _______________ : NO
Runtime Information:
Profile ____________________________________________________ : standalone
Stream Parent (accept data from Children) __________________ : NO
Stream Child (send data to a Parent) _______________________ : NO
Total System Memory ________________________________________ : 67423514624
Available System Memory ____________________________________ : 28470218752Additional info
Netdata has run on that server for roughly 10 months without issues. This behaviour only started recently.