Messages in this thread | | | Date | Mon, 17 Aug 1998 11:03:55 -0700 | From | david <> | Subject | Re: [discussion] Swap overcommitment recovery |
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Reply to mail from Andi Kleen about [discussion] Swap overcommitment recovery > The problem usually then is that the X server is blocking in swapping, > and thus can't handle the mouse pointer. The real fix for that is a > multi threaded X server, not some crazy kernel hacks.
Actually, gpm at the console as well as typing at the console is affected. Everything is affected. I have had this happen many more times on a server without X running because of one reason or another. The recent Apache DoS attack comes to mind. Resource limits aren't all that useful when the server is designed specifically as a web server and *should* get 99% of the memory. Limits are in place to try and keep this to a minimum, but the odd occurance does happen.
Back to the story. Userland control becomes fairly non-existant. Whether this is my personal workstation or a server, the situation needs to be resolved immediately and userland is way too slow to do this.
I don't consider waiting 10 minutes for ctrl-alt-del to take effect a proper solution. The kernel overcommits memory which is a necessary and desirable feature; the kernel needs to help me recover. The last entry on the list, putting everyone to sleep and waking up the userland daemon to deal with things is IMO a fair solution.
-d -- Look, look, see Windows 98. Buy, lemmings, buy! (c) 1998 David Ford. Redistribution via the Microsoft Network is prohibited. for linux-kernel: please read linux/Documentation/* before posting problems
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