From owner-freebsd-hackers Fri Oct 10 15:41:59 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id PAA15464 for hackers-outgoing; Fri, 10 Oct 1997 15:41:59 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-hackers) Received: from sag.space.lockheed.com (sag.space.lockheed.com [192.68.162.134]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id PAA15459 for ; Fri, 10 Oct 1997 15:41:54 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from handy@sag.space.lockheed.com) Received: from localhost by sag.space.lockheed.com; (5.65v3.2/1.1.8.2/21Nov95-0423PM) id AA02330; Fri, 10 Oct 1997 15:41:51 -0700 Date: Fri, 10 Oct 1997 15:41:51 -0700 (PDT) From: "Brian N. Handy" To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Run out of swap Message-Id: X-Files: The truth is out there Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Hi folks, I'm having problems with my machine hanging when I run it up against the stops in terms of memory usage. I have 128MB of RAM, and I have 240MB of swap. (Before I upgraded this was easily enough space. :-) This is my data analysis machine, I'm looking at boatloads of solar physics data on it. The program of choice is called IDL, which is (in turn) running under linux-emulation. Now every so often I start up a too-ambitious job, run out of memory and it crashes. I get the predictable "job kilt" line which tells me I ran out of memory and I was dutifully kicked out. HOWEVER, now what I'm seeing every so often is that it doesn't kick me out, but instead the machine just hangs. The clock in the corne of my screen stops, the mouse stops, the num lock light doesn't go off and off. Fixed and dialated. Once this happens, it seems like I have to hit the reset button. The box has no other real traffic other than doing this stuff. Now when I talk about huge memory usage, I'm talking about say looking at 300 256x256 pixel images with various mathematical processes happening to them (dark current subtraction, take the natural log to bring out the diffuse stuff, that sort of thing.) So I'm not surprised I'm running out of memory. But I'm not sure why the job won't just crash when I hit the end of space. The (maybe) relavant lines from my kernel config: options "MAXMEM=(128*1024)" options "MAXDSIZ=(256*1024*1024)" options "DFLDSIZ=(256*1024*1024)" It could be these last two are too big for the smallish about of swap I have available. Anyway, are there any suggestions out there? I'm not sure how to figure out where I'm hanging, but I seem to be able to repeat the problem fairly consistently. I'd rather the job crashed instead of just running into a wall. Thanks, Brian