AIX and Clamd scan error, "Can't allocate memory ERROR"

"N.Sakai via clamav-users" <[email protected]> Mon, 30 Jun 2025 14:55:44 +0900
Newsgroups gmane.comp.security.virus.clamav.user
Message-ID <[email protected]>
Hello everyone,
I would like to consult with you regarding an error that I have 
encountered while scanning with ClamAV 1.0.7 on AIX 7.3, particularly 
with clamd, which is not something I have encountered often.

On multiple AIX servers that I support for management, an occurrence 
happened where, at almost the same timing when files were scanned by 
clamd, all the scans recorded a "Can't allocate memory ERROR" and failed 
as follows;
Fri Jun 27 18:24:10 2025 -> /opt/app/bin: Can't allocate memory ERROR
Fri Jun 27 18:24:10 2025 -> /opt/app/bin/a.out: Can't allocate memory ERROR
Fri Jun 27 18:24:10 2025 -> /opt/app/bin/check.sh: Can't allocate memory
ERROR
Fri Jun 27 18:24:10 2025 -> /opt/app/bin/data01: Can't allocate memory 
ERROR
Fri Jun 27 18:24:10 2025 -> /opt/app/bin/upd.sh: Can't allocate memory 
ERROR
Fri Jun 27 18:24:10 2025 -> /opt/app/contrib/.subsystem: Can't allocate
memory ERROR
Fri Jun 27 18:24:10 2025 -> /opt/app/contrib/user.conf: Can't allocate
memory ERROR

I remember that in former versions of ClamAV, similar errors occurred 
with certain file formats.
Also, I have encountered situations where clamd failed to start in a 
memory-constrained environment or shut down during scanning several times.

However, in this environment, the server has 32GB of memory, and about 
10GB of free memory is secured according to svmon.
The scan targets include simple text files of just a few KB as well as 
program files of several MB, but they do not include archives or large 
files.
The same "Can't allocate memory ERROR" has occurred for all files that 
were scanned, without exception.

I am not well-versed in the internal structure of clamd, but I 
understand that clamd operates in a multi-threaded manner during object 
scanning (it launches new threads and assigns them to scanning), so I 
checked the ulimit settings for AIX threads and processes, as well as 
memory.

  ulimit -a
  time(seconds)        unlimited
  file(blocks)         unlimited
  data(kbytes)         unlimited
  stack(kbytes)        4194304
  memory(kbytes)       unlimited
  coredump(blocks)     2097151
  nofiles(descriptors) 8000
  threads(per process) unlimited
  processes(per user)  16384

Looking at this, it doesn't seem that any particularly problematic 
values are set.
What could be the reasons for clamd returning this kind of error for all 
scan requests?

Thank you in advance.

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