EJBTimer threads are accumulating memory in org.jboss.security.SecurityAssociation$SubjectContexts

Environment

• JBoss Enterprise Application Platform (EAP)
  • 4.3
  • 5.x

Issue

• We have a large amount of retention in org.jboss.security.SecurityAssociation$SubjectContexts tracing back to EJBTimer threads

Resolution

• If you have some similar model of cascading thread or scheduled task creation, launch JBoss with -Dorg.jboss.security.SecurityAssociation.ThreadLocal=true set. This will cause non-inheritable ThreadLocals to be used instead to prevent continuous growth through inheritance and thread creation.

Root Cause

• New, future EJB timers are created with each EJB timer invocation. The security contexts by default are inherited in children threads so if threads using security contexts continuously create new threads for future work, the contexts keep getting inherited and continuously build.

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