frequent scp queries lead to huge memory usage

Binary package hint: policykit-1

Ubuntu 10.10

Expected behaviour: Repeated scp queries over time should not lead to huge memory usage by polkitd process.

Actual behaviour: A badly written shell script called every minute on a remote was using scp with ssh-keyflle authentication to copy a non-existant file to a fresh install of Ubuntu 10.10. This lead to huge memory usage by the polkitd process over a few days (600 MB). Issue was repeatable on reboot, but fixing the shell script drastically reduced the amount of times scp was called, and prevented - or at least greatly slowed - the out of control memory usage.