[ILUG] Re: Out of Memory

[Paul Mc Auley]

On Tue, 7 Mar 2000 13:19:44 +0000 
David Murphy <drjolt+ilug at redbrick.dcu.ie>  wrote:
| Quoting <200003071315.NAA17260 at dagda.tuatha.org>
| by Colm Buckley <listmaster at linux.ie>:

| > This OOM discussion is starting to get a little uncivil in tone.  Would
[call for calm]

| Noted.
| I'd also like to mention the (currently) low-traffic-but-functional
| technobabble at lists.redbrick.dcu.ie list - mail
| technobabble-request at lists.redbrick.dcu.ie or visit
| http://lists.redbrick.dcu.ie/mailman/listinfo.cgi/technobabble to
| join. I'd be perfectly happy to move the discussion there if it's
| upsetting ILUG people.

In the mean time, perhaps it would be worth discussing what strategies can be 
employed to make Linux cope better... One thought I had was to write a short 
program which will allocate a reserve and then monitor the amount of free 
memory. On low memory it could then attempt to swapon an emergency file and 
start ringing alarm bells, or start killing previously defined/undefined 
processes. In extremis, a graceful shutdown to single user mode might be in 
order. It's not a matter of the kernel itself locking up, so much as all the 
ancillary programs like getty and init.
	Paul