Re: 2.4 kernel series and the oom_killer and /proc/sys/vm/overcommit_memory

From: Robert Love (rml@tech9.net)
Date: Thu Aug 22 2002 - 12:22:27 EST


On Thu, 2002-08-22 at 11:19, Marc-Christian Petersen wrote:

> My question now: Why isn't it possible, if overcommit_memory is 0, to really
> check if there is enough memory or not, and if NOT just to display a message
> like "Not enough memory for execution. Aborted" ?

Because the overcommit checks in 2.4 stock are heuristic in nature -
they simple compare an estimate of committed memory against what you are
trying to allocate.

In 2.5 and 2.4-ac we have strict overcommit which couple accurate
accounting of the committed address space with stricter rules to prevent
overcommit.

        Robert Love

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