From owner-freebsd-hackers Wed Jul 14 13: 4: 7 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from pzero.sandelman.ottawa.on.ca (gigabit.solidum.com [216.13.130.242]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 964541544A for ; Wed, 14 Jul 1999 13:03:57 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from mcr@sandelman.ottawa.on.ca) Received: from morden.sandelman.ottawa.on.ca (localhost.sandelman.ottawa.on.ca [127.0.0.1]) by pzero.sandelman.ottawa.on.ca (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id QAA02130; Wed, 14 Jul 1999 16:01:21 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199907142001.QAA02130@pzero.sandelman.ottawa.on.ca> To: Ben Rosengart Cc: John Nemeth , freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org, tech-userlevel@netbsd.org Subject: Re: Swap overcommit (was Re: Replacement for grep(1) (part 2)) In-reply-to: Your message of "Wed, 14 Jul 1999 17:57:40 -0000." Mime-Version: 1.0 (generated by tm-edit 7.106) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1999 16:01:20 -0400 From: Michael Richardson Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG >>>>> "Ben" == Ben Rosengart writes: Ben> On Wed, 14 Jul 1999, John Nemeth wrote: >> On one system I administrate, the largest process is typically >> rpc.nisd (the NIS+ server daemon). Killing that process would be a >> bad thing (TM). You're talking about killing random processes. This >> is no way to run a system. It is not possible for any arbitrary >> decision to always hit the correct process. That is a decision that >> must be made by a competent admin. This is the biggest argument >> against overcommit: there is no way to gracefully recover from an out >> of memory situation, and that makes for an unreliable system. Ben> $DEITY on a pogo stick, how many times do we have to hear the same Ben> hypothetical argument? Ben> Tell me, Mr. Nemeth, has this ever happened to you? Have you ever Ben> come *close*? Uh, since we don't run overcommit, the answer is specifically *NO*. We have never had lack of swap space randomly kill one of our processes. This is good, and this is the way we want to keep it. I have had it happen on other systems. (Solaris, AIX) It was very mystifying to diagnose. Sure, the systems were misconfigured for what we were trying to do, but if I wanted build a custom system for every application.... well... I'd be running NT. ] Train travel features AC outlets with no take-off restrictions| firewalls [ ] Michael Richardson, Sandelman Software Works, Ottawa, ON |net architect[ ] mcr@sandelman.ottawa.on.ca http://www.sandelman.ottawa.on.ca/ |device driver[ ] panic("Just another NetBSD/notebook using, kernel hacking, security guy"); [ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message