SUMMARY I have a system with 16 GiB of RAM. I just found myself with 13 GB used and I tried to open a vault. The whole system crashed because it ran out of memory. Considering the vault is just a few kilobytes (it only stores a few .txt files), I do not think such high memory requirements are justified. STEPS TO REPRODUCE 1. Try to open a Plasma vault OBSERVED RESULT If you have less than 4 GB of free RAM, the system starts closing down applications, potentially ending the whole session. EXPECTED RESULT The vault is opened even in low-memory situations or, if this is not possible, the user is alerted that there is not enough free memory. SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS Linux: KDE neon KDE Plasma Version: 5.27.1 KDE Frameworks Version: 5.103.0 Qt Version: 5.15.8 ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
What encryption backend is your vault using? What process exactly uses up all the memory when you unlock the vault?
(In reply to Nate Graham from comment #1) > What encryption backend is your vault using? > > What process exactly uses up all the memory when you unlock the vault? I'm using cryfs. I've just tested this, and it's the cryfs process taking up all the memory. It seems like this is intentional: https://github.com/cryfs/cryfs/issues/335#issuecomment-652338744 Cryfs is currently the default (it's the first on the list) when creating a new vault. It would be good to inform the user of this limitation, as it seems like it is intentionally made to use 4 GB of RAM: this makes it impossible to use it on devices with 4 GB of RAM or less. From my limited testing, gocryptfs appears to use a lot less memory while providing similar (if not even better) performance.
Thanks for reporting this. I guess it is time to rethink the backends and whether to have a default... I like cryfs security-wise, but it was a pain point for a few times now...