From: Al Boldi <a1426z@gawab.com>
To: Neil Horman <nhorman@tuxdriver.com>
Subject: Re: Resource limits
Date: Mon, 26 Sep 2005 20:32:14 +0300
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Cc: Rik van Riel <riel@redhat.com>, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
References: <200509251712.42302.a1426z@gawab.com> <200509261718.17658.a1426z@gawab.com> <20050926155644.GC2100@hmsreliant.homelinux.net>
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Neil Horman wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 26, 2005 at 05:18:17PM +0300, Al Boldi wrote:
> > Rik van Riel wrote:
> > > On Sun, 25 Sep 2005, Al Boldi wrote:
> > > > Resource limits in Linux, when available, are currently very
> > > > limited.
> > > >
> > > > i.e.:
> > > > Too many process forks and your system may crash.
> > > > This can be capped with threads-max, but may lead you into a
> > > > lock-out.
> > > >
> > > > What is needed is a soft, hard, and a special emergency limit that
> > > > would allow you to use the resource for a limited time to circumvent
> > > > a lock-out.
> > > >
> > > > Would this be difficult to implement?
> > >
> > > How would you reclaim the resource after that limited time is
> > > over ?  Kill processes?
> >
> > That's one way,  but really, the issue needs some deep thought.
> > Leaving Linux exposed to a lock-out is rather frightening.
>
> What exactly is it that you're worried about here?  Do you have a
> particular concern that a process won't be able to fork or create a
> thread?  Resources that can be allocated to user space processes always
> run the risk that their allocation will not succede.  Its up to the
> application to deal with that.

Think about a DoS attack.

Thanks!

--
Al

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