From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S262122AbTHaPas (ORCPT ); Sun, 31 Aug 2003 11:30:48 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S262128AbTHaPas (ORCPT ); Sun, 31 Aug 2003 11:30:48 -0400 Received: from pc1-cwma1-5-cust4.swan.cable.ntl.com ([80.5.120.4]:13245 "EHLO dhcp23.swansea.linux.org.uk") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S262122AbTHaPar (ORCPT ); Sun, 31 Aug 2003 11:30:47 -0400 Subject: Re: Andrea VM changes From: Alan Cox To: Andrea Arcangeli Cc: Marcelo Tosatti , Mike Fedyk , Antonio Vargas , lkml , Marc-Christian Petersen In-Reply-To: <20030831145932.GU24409@dualathlon.random> References: <20030830231904.GL24409@dualathlon.random> <1062339003.10208.1.camel@dhcp23.swansea.linux.org.uk> <20030831145932.GU24409@dualathlon.random> Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: <1062343789.10208.9.camel@dhcp23.swansea.linux.org.uk> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Ximian Evolution 1.4.4 (1.4.4-4) Date: Sun, 31 Aug 2003 16:29:49 +0100 Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Sul, 2003-08-31 at 15:59, Andrea Arcangeli wrote: > And I don't see how you can avoid oom killing to ever happen if the apps > recurse on the stack and growsdown some hundred megs. In such case > you've to oom kill, since there's no synchronous failure path during the > stack growsdown walk. The stack grow fails and you get a signal. Its up to you to have a language that handles this or in C enjoy the delights of sigaltstack. In practice the settings are such that this case basically "doesnt happen" for all normal use. > I just don't think it solves or hides the other issues, it seems > completely orthogonal to me, because you can still run oom during stack > growsdown. Agreed - and there will always be corner cases, people who don't want strict overcommit etc. Thats why I said "as well". Its not a replacement for OOM handling of some form.