Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1762760AbXJRUPi (ORCPT ); Thu, 18 Oct 2007 16:15:38 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1757317AbXJRUPb (ORCPT ); Thu, 18 Oct 2007 16:15:31 -0400 Received: from kanga.kvack.org ([66.96.29.28]:60751 "EHLO kanga.kvack.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1753692AbXJRUPa (ORCPT ); Thu, 18 Oct 2007 16:15:30 -0400 Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2007 16:15:31 -0400 From: Marcelo Tosatti To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Cc: drepper@redhat.com, riel@redhat.com Subject: OOM notifications Message-ID: <20071018201531.GA5938@dmt> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2.1i Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 876 Lines: 25 Hi, AIX contains the SIGDANGER signal to notify applications to free up some unused cached memory: http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0007.0/0901.html There have been a few discussions on implementing such an idea on Linux, but nothing concrete has been achieved. On the kernel side Rik suggested two notification points: "about to swap" (for desktop scenarios) and "about to OOM" (for embedded-like scenarios). With that assumption in mind it would be necessary to either have two special devices for notification, or somehow indicate both events through the same file descriptor. Comments are more than welcome. - 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/