Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2009 01:35:57 +0300
From: Evgeniy Polyakov <zbr@ioremap.net>
To: Bodo Eggert <7eggert@gmx.de>
Cc: Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>, Dave Jones <davej@redhat.com>,
       linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>,
       Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Subject: Re: [why oom_adj does not work] Re: Linux killed Kenny, bastard!
Message-ID: <20090115223557.GC10429@ioremap.net>
References: <bTx3z-8bU-23@gated-at.bofh.it> <bTxdg-8sZ-23@gated-at.bofh.it> <bTxdg-8sZ-21@gated-at.bofh.it> <bTxmW-hf-1@gated-at.bofh.it> <bTRYr-2up-21@gated-at.bofh.it> <E1LNBGL-00021y-C8@be1.7eggert.dyndns.org> <20090114192216.GA18123@ioremap.net> <alpine.LSU.0.999.0901152243330.9772@be1.lrz>
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On Thu, Jan 15, 2009 at 10:50:58PM +0100, Bodo Eggert (7eggert@gmx.de) wrote:
> > This does not work if processes are short-living and are spawned by the
> > parent on demand.
> 
> They will have the same name, too. Your Kenny-killer will fail, too.

It is not always the case, processes start executing different binaries
and change the names, that's at least what I observed in the particular
root case of the discussion.

> > If processes have different priority in regards to oom
> > condition, this problem can not be solved with existing interfaces
> > without changing the application. So effectively there is no solution.
> 
> ACK, but being a child should count. Maybe the weight for childs should be 
> increased, if it does not do the right thing? Or maybe the childs do share 
> much (most of the) memory, so killing the parent is the right thing if you 
> want to free some RAM?

There could be lots of heuristics applied for the different cases, but
without changing the application, they are somewhat limited to
long-living processes only. There are really lots of cases when it does
not stand.

-- 
	Evgeniy Polyakov
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