Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1030418AbWJDAHp (ORCPT ); Tue, 3 Oct 2006 20:07:45 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1030419AbWJDAHo (ORCPT ); Tue, 3 Oct 2006 20:07:44 -0400 Received: from outpipe-village-512-1.bc.nu ([81.2.110.250]:5870 "EHLO lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1030418AbWJDAHn (ORCPT ); Tue, 3 Oct 2006 20:07:43 -0400 Subject: Re: System hang problem. From: Alan Cox To: Manish Neema Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org In-Reply-To: References: Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Wed, 04 Oct 2006 01:33:14 +0100 Message-Id: <1159921995.17553.136.camel@localhost.localdomain> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Evolution 2.6.2 (2.6.2-1.fc5.5) Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1347 Lines: 31 Ar Maw, 2006-10-03 am 15:07 -0700, ysgrifennodd Manish Neema: > RHEL3.0 U3 would generate an OOM kill "each and every time" it sensed > system hang but due to other bugs, we had to move away from it. RedHat And often when it didn't need too which for many users workloads is bad > Changing overcommit to 2 (and ratio to any where from 1 to 99) would > result in certain OS processes (automount daemon for e.g.) getting > killed when all the allowed memory is committed. What is the point in Killed and logging an OOM message ? That indicates a bug (well for ratio <= about 50% anyway). Killed because there is no memory and a memory allocation fails is expected. > reserving some memory if a random root process would get killed leaving > the system in a totally unknown state? If you run out of memory and someone asks for more something has to give. A properly configured system really shouldn't be running out of memory anyway for most sane workloads. It's like putting water in a bottle, at the point you have more water than bottle something has to spill, if it doesn't the box hangs. Alan - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/