Messages in this thread | | | Date | Wed, 9 Jul 2003 16:10:55 -0500 | From | Ryan Underwood <> | Subject | Re: Forking shell bombs |
| |
Hi David,
On Wed, Jul 09, 2003 at 11:07:55AM -0400, David Ford wrote: > No such thing exists. I can have 10,000 processes doing nothing and > have a load average of 0.00. I can have 100 processes each sucking cpu > as fast as the electrons flow and have a dead box.
Well, like I said, in this specific case we talk about a fork bomb, not a bunch of idle processes. My question is what the upper limit to set, in order to ensure that processes that do nothing but "while (1) fork();" do not take down the system. Apparently 2047 is too high for 2.4.21, at least on my system. But, a slower box manages a 2047 ulimit fine with a 2.4.20 kernel.
> Learn how to manage resource limits and you can tuck another feather > into your fledgeling sysadmin hat ;)
I already know how to manage the limits, but I am asking why the system seems to hang indefinitely when a maximum of 2047 is set, but not when e.g. 1500 is set. Do you have any idea? Why would there be such a large change in behavior with such a small change in parameter?
Furthermore, why does my (slower, 600 < 800mhz) system running 2.4.20 kill off a fork bomb at a 2047 ulimit instantaneously, but 2.4.21 takes half an hour or more, at which point I give up?
-- Ryan Underwood, <nemesis at icequake.net>, icq=10317253 - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
| |