Subject: Re: Swap overcommit (was Re: Replacement for grep(1) (part 2))
To: John Nemeth <jnemeth@victoria.tc.ca>
From: Michael Richardson <mcr@sandelman.ottawa.on.ca>
List: tech-userlevel
Date: 07/14/1999 15:58:23
>>>>> "John" == John Nemeth <jnemeth@victoria.tc.ca> writes:
John> On one system I administrate, the largest process is typically
John> rpc.nisd (the NIS+ server daemon). Killing that process would be a
John> bad thing (TM). You're talking about killing random processes.
John> This is no way to run a system. It is not possible for any
John> arbitrary decision to always hit the correct process. That is a
John> decision that must be made by a competent admin. This is the
John> biggest argument against overcommit: there is no way to gracefully
John> recover from an out of memory situation, and that makes for an
John> unreliable system.
No, I don't agree.
This is a biggest argument against solving the overcommit situation with
SIGKILL. I have no problem with overcommit as a concept, I have a problem
with being unable to keep my possibly big processes (X, rpc.nisd,
etc. depending on cicumstances) from being victims.
] Train travel features AC outlets with no take-off restrictions| firewalls [
] Michael Richardson, Sandelman Software Works, Ottawa, ON |net architect[
] mcr@sandelman.ottawa.on.ca http://www.sandelman.ottawa.on.ca/ |device driver[
] panic("Just another NetBSD/notebook using, kernel hacking, security guy"); [