From: Michael Buesch <fsdeveloper@yahoo.de>
To: Ryan Underwood <nemesis-lists@icequake.net>
Subject: Re: Forking shell bombs
Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2003 13:36:03 +0200
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On Tuesday 08 July 2003 22:28, Ryan Underwood wrote:
> Hi,
>
> > That's what per-user process limits are for.  Doesn't matter if it's a
> > shellscript or something else; any system without limits set is
> > vulnerable.
>
> I agree, but it would also be nice to have a way to clean up after the
> fact without giving up the box.  My limit is set at 2047 processes
> which, while being a lot, doesn't seem like enough to guarantee a dead
> box.  (Don't many busy systems have more than this number running at any
> given time?)
>
> > It's a base redhat kernel, after the cannot allocate memory, my system
> > returned to normal operation and it didnt die.
> > Is this the type of behavior you were looking for? or am i off base?
> >
> > Linux sloth 2.4.20-8 #1 Thu Mar 13 17:54:28 EST 2003 i686 i686 i386
> > GNU/Linux
> >
> > $ :(){ :|:&};:
> > [1] 3071
> >
> > $
> > [1]+  Done                    : | :
> >
> > $ -bash: fork: Cannot allocate memory
> > -bash: fork: Cannot allocate memory
> > -bash: fork: Cannot allocate memory
> > -bash: fork: Cannot allocate memory
>
> Nope, on my system running stock 2.4.21, after hitting enter, wait about 2
> seconds, and the system is frozen.  Telnet connects but never gets a
> shell.  None of the SysRq process-killing combos have any effect.  After
> a few failed killalls (which eventually killed the one shell I was able
> to get), and Alt-SysRq-S never completing the sync, I gave up and
> Alt-SysRq-B.
>
> What does ulimit -u say on your system?  2047 on mine.

mb@lfs:~> ulimit -u
2047

my system doesn't freeze.
It becomes _very_ slow, but I can kill the forking processes.
After killing, the system runs just fine.
I'm using 2.4.21.

- -- 
Regards Michael Buesch
http://www.8ung.at/tuxsoft
 13:34:31 up 12 min,  2 users,  load average: 1.32, 1.22, 0.74

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