* Strange behavior in out-of-memory situation
@ 2003-04-24 18:57 Timothy Miller
2003-04-24 19:02 ` Helge Hafting
0 siblings, 1 reply; 3+ messages in thread
From: Timothy Miller @ 2003-04-24 18:57 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Linux Kernel Mailing List
I'm using Red Hat kernel 2.4.18-26.7.x.
I ran a program which is trying to suck up all of memory. I would like
to kill the process, but "top", "vmstat", and "ps" all hang when I try
to use them. Also, pressing ctrl-c in the terminal where I can the
program won't kill it.
To an extent, however, the system was still usable, albeit EXTREMELY
unresponsive. Eventually, the program dumped core, and everything
returned to norma.
Is this a known problem?
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 3+ messages in thread
* Re: Strange behavior in out-of-memory situation
2003-04-24 18:57 Strange behavior in out-of-memory situation Timothy Miller
@ 2003-04-24 19:02 ` Helge Hafting
2003-04-24 19:26 ` Timothy Miller
0 siblings, 1 reply; 3+ messages in thread
From: Helge Hafting @ 2003-04-24 19:02 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Timothy Miller; +Cc: Linux Kernel Mailing List
On Thu, Apr 24, 2003 at 02:57:26PM -0400, Timothy Miller wrote:
> I'm using Red Hat kernel 2.4.18-26.7.x.
>
> I ran a program which is trying to suck up all of memory. I would like
> to kill the process, but "top", "vmstat", and "ps" all hang when I try
> to use them. Also, pressing ctrl-c in the terminal where I can the
> program won't kill it.
>
> To an extent, however, the system was still usable, albeit EXTREMELY
> unresponsive. Eventually, the program dumped core, and everything
> returned to norma.
>
> Is this a known problem?
Your system seems to be in normal working order. There is no problem here.
A program using up all memory _will_ make the machine very unresponsive
as everything goes into swap (or discards all executable code for
those who think they can fool the system by not having swap).
You may indeed be unable to run other programs like top, because
there aren't enough memory left to run them. Your program probably
dumped core when it ran the system completely out of memory and
trigged the Out-Of-Memory killer.
The only unusual here is that ctrl+c didn't work, but some
programs block that signal. Perhaps your program does too.
You can use ulimit if you don't want your machine to become
sluggish. The effect is that your memory eater will be killed
earlier, before it uses up so much memory that nothing else
will run.
Helge Hafting
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 3+ messages in thread
* Re: Strange behavior in out-of-memory situation
2003-04-24 19:02 ` Helge Hafting
@ 2003-04-24 19:26 ` Timothy Miller
0 siblings, 0 replies; 3+ messages in thread
From: Timothy Miller @ 2003-04-24 19:26 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Helge Hafting; +Cc: Linux Kernel Mailing List
Helge Hafting wrote:
>
>
>
>The only unusual here is that ctrl+c didn't work, but some
>programs block that signal. Perhaps your program does too.
>
>
I wrote the program, and it's a simple data processor. It does nothing
to block ctrl-c. In fact, although I couldn't run ps, top, or vmstat, I
could run other things like ls and vi.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 3+ messages in thread
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