PSOD (purple screen of death) Usage error in dlmalloc vsfwd VSIPIoctlFlowData@(nsx-vsip)

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:
PSOD (purple screen of death) is seen while collecting flows from the dfw kernel module.

The following may be observed on the stack:

PSOD Message: @BlueScreen: PANIC bora/vmkernel/main/dlmalloc.c:4924 - Usage error in dlmalloc
*PCPU : /vsfwd
@BlueScreen: #GP Exception 13 in world 70516:vsfwd @ 0x418024f468ff
0x4392b019ba88:[0x41802b221382]VSIPIoctlFlowData@(nsx-vsip)

Cause

Issue is in the flow collection when layer 7 firewall is enabled. The vsip module experiences a buffer overrun and overwrites the allocated memory.

Resolution

This issue is resolved in VMware NSX Data Center for vSphere 6.4.4.

Workaround:

• Disable flow collection/ipfix

OR

• disable any layer 7 rule.

i.e. change all Layer 7 (APP_) services to their Layer 4 counterpart