Environment
Novell NetWare 6.5
NetWare OpenSSH (SSHD.NLM)
Situation
Connections made to SSHD.NLM (ssh, sftp, scp) can cause a build up in the amount of memory allocated by several NLMs. This is usually minor on most systems, but on systems where these protocols are heavily used, or where port 22 is exposed to public access, the memory can accumulate to very high amounts, until the server must be rebooted.
On NetWare 6.5 SP7 and below, SSHD activity will cause memory build up in the following NLMs:
XMGR
XENGEXP
On NetWare 6.5 SP8, SSHD activity will cause memory build up in the following NLMs:
CONNMGR
DSLOADER
LIBC
NCPIP
TCP
WS2_32
WSPIP
DSLOADER
LIBC
NCPIP
TCP
WS2_32
WSPIP
Resolution
Administrators with systems on NetWare 6.5 SP7 or NetWare 6.5 SP8 should download and apply patch NWsshd8a.zip, which can be found at:
If for some reason that link doesn't work, go to https://download.novell.com/patch/finder. Select the product "NetWare," and then do a keyword search on the patch name, NWsshd8a.zip.
This update should be safe to use on top of older NetWare 6.5 Support packs as well; however, this has not been fully tested. Novell recommends that, at a minimum, LIBC.NLM be brought up to the SP7 level.
Details:
A fix to correct most of the leakage in XMGR and XENGEXP was been released in NetWare 6.5 SP8. In test environments, depending on test conditions and severity of load, the leakage in these NLMs is reduced anywhere from 60% to 100%.
One of the other SSH fixes in SP8 coincidentally introduced leakage in the additional NLMs listed above. This additional leakage is corrected in NWsshd8a.zip.