Messages in this thread | | | Subject | Re: "VM watchdog"? [was Re: VM nuisance] | Date | Fri, 17 Aug 2001 02:04:40 -0700 (PDT) | From | (Colonel) |
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In clouddancer.list.kernel, David wrote:
>>Didn't everyone pretty much agree that if we could turn off overcommit >>completely and reliably, that would be the preferred solution ? Simply sig11 >>the app that's unlucky enough to want more memory than there's in the system >>(or, horror, have malloc() fail) >> >>Now, I don't remember the entire thread, but IIRC it was difficult to kill >>overcommit completely. >> > >The kernel allocates memory within itself. We will still reach OOM >conditions. It can't be avoided.
That doesn't sound good.
What bugs me about this statement was that until 2.4, I never had lockups. I sometimes had a LOT of swapping and slow response, but I also knew that running a complex numeric simulation when RAM < 'program needs' does that. I accepted it and tended to arrange such runs in my absence. Now I find that I get some process nuked (or worse - partially nuked) even after increasing to 4x swap and eliminating lazy habits that would leave some idle process up for a few days in case I needed it again (worked fine in 2.0.36). There are _alot_ of good things in 2.4, but sometimes....
Does your statement imply that a machine left "alone" must eventually OOM given enough runtime?? It seems that it must.
-- 2.4 VM: "I'm sorry Dave ... I'm afraid I can't do that."
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