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Subject: Re: Killing/balancing processes when overcommited
From: Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>
To: Jim Sibley <jlsibley@us.ibm.com>
Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, riel@conectiva.com.br, ltc@linux.ibm.com,
       Troy Reed <tdreed@us.ibm.com>
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Date: 11 Sep 2002 22:44:24 +0100
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On Wed, 2002-09-11 at 19:08, Jim Sibley wrote:
> I have run into a situation in a multi-user Linux environment that when
> memory is exhausted, random things happen. The best case is that the
> "offending" user's task is killed. Just as likely, another user's task is

The best case is that you don't allow overcommit. 2.4 supports that in
the Red Hat and -ac trees. Robert Love forward ported the changes to
2.5.x. There is an outstanding need to add an additional "root factor"
so root can get some memory other people cannot, but otherwise it seems
to work well

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