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Date: Mon, 16 Sep 2002 09:29:47 +0200
From: Helge Hafting <helgehaf@aitel.hist.no>
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To: Rik van Riel <riel@conectiva.com.br>, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: Killing/balancing processes when overcommited
References: <Pine.LNX.4.44L.0209131943390.1857-100000@imladris.surriel.com>
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Rik van Riel wrote:

> If you kill the process that requests memory, the sequence often
> goes as follows:
> 
> 1) memory is exhausted
> 
> 2) the network driver can't allocate memory and
>    spits out a message
> 
> 3) syslogd and/or klogd get killed
> 
> Clearly you want to be a bit smarter about which process to kill.

Ill-implemented klogd/syslogd.  Pre-allocating a little memory
is one way to go, or drop messages until allocation
becomes possible again.  Then log a complaint about
messages missing due to a temporary OOM.

Helge Hafting
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