[FELIX-1170] MemoryLeak when stopping and restarting Felix

• Type: Bug
• Status: Closed
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Fixed
• Affects Version/s: framework-1.2.1
• Fix Version/s: framework-2.0.0
• Component/s: Framework
• Environment: Atlassian JIRA
• Assignee: Karl Pauls
• Reporter: Jed Wesley-Smith
• Created: 22/May/09 01:58
• Updated: 26/Aug/09 13:38
• Resolved: 16/Jun/09 21:15

Description

There is a memory leak caused by a strong reference from the BundleProtectionDomain to a bundle and Felix.

The problem is that a URLClassLoader gets its AccessControlContext from the stack - AccessController.getContext() calls AccessController.getStackAccessControlContext() which is basically arbitrary at the time.

In our case we have a ServletFilter plugin that is being loaded by Felix. When a JasperLoader (a URLClassLoader) is created to load a JSP it inherits the BundleProtectionDomain as part of its AccessControlContext. If we later shut down Felix, it cannot be GC'd due to this reference.

For our purposes we have tested making the m_felix and m_bundle weak references and have verified that it does indeed fix the problem.