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Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2003 19:16:21 +0200
From: Matthias Buelow <mkb@mukappabeta.de>
To: Kris Kennaway <kris@obsecurity.org>
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cc: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org
cc: William Fletcher <ultraviolet@epweb.co.za>
Subject: Re: Zsh fork bomb paniced my kernel.
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Kris Kennaway writes:

>Yes, this is a FAQ, and why resource limits exist.  man login.conf

It needs to be fixed nevertheless.
I reported something similar back in, I think, ca. 1996 (also
against NetBSD, iirc).  Not much has been done it that area
since, as it seems.  With my fork bomb, the system didn't panic
but simply froze solid.
The kernel must enforce freeing resources when they're used up.
By killing random processes, trying to identify the culprit
process(es), or whatever.  Simply hanging or panicking is not an
option.

-- 
Matthias Buelow;  mkb@{mukappabeta.de,informatik.uni-wuerzburg.de}

    ``Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.''
        -- William of Ockham (~1285-1349, "Occam's Razor")