Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1753114AbXJYQKn (ORCPT ); Thu, 25 Oct 2007 12:10:43 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1758521AbXJYQKa (ORCPT ); Thu, 25 Oct 2007 12:10:30 -0400 Received: from outpipe-village-512-1.bc.nu ([81.2.110.250]:42337 "EHLO the-village.bc.nu" rhost-flags-OK-FAIL-OK-FAIL) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1756141AbXJYQK3 (ORCPT ); Thu, 25 Oct 2007 12:10:29 -0400 Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2007 17:13:11 +0100 From: Alan Cox To: Richard Purdie Cc: LKML Subject: Re: Linux machines dieing in swap storms Message-ID: <20071025171311.42844d17@the-village.bc.nu> In-Reply-To: <1193325641.5776.21.camel@localhost.localdomain> References: <1193325641.5776.21.camel@localhost.localdomain> X-Mailer: Claws Mail 2.10.0 (GTK+ 2.10.14; i386-redhat-linux-gnu) Organization: Red Hat UK Cyf., Amberley Place, 107-111 Peascod Street, Windsor, Berkshire, SL4 1TE, Y Deyrnas Gyfunol. Cofrestrwyd yng Nghymru a Lloegr o'r rhif cofrestru 3798903 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 773 Lines: 17 > I'm seriously tempted to add a "kill the process using the most memory" > key combination into SysRq which might let me save the desktop but won't > help with my remote server. I could also just disable swap I guess. For specific applications you can set resource limits, you can also set OOM priorities in current kernels to pick who dies. Finally you can disable overcommit and go for a rigid "no overcommit" policy where the system will fail any memory allocation which might lead to out of memory situations later. 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/