Michael Green wrote: > Anyone know where exactly can OOM be enabled/disabled from the kernel? > does it have any accompanying daemon? Sounds like you want to take a look at the kernel's Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt file. It says that you can do "echo 1 > /proc/sys/vm/overcommit_*" (or whatever to change this): # overcommit_memory: # # This value contains a flag that enables memory overcommitment. # # When this flag is 0, the kernel attempts to estimate the amount # of free memory left when userspace requests more memory. # # When this flag is 1, the kernel pretends there is always enough # memory until it actually runs out. # # When this flag is 2, the kernel uses a "never overcommit" # policy that attempts to prevent any overcommit of memory. # # This feature can be very useful because there are a lot of # programs that malloc() huge amounts of memory "just-in-case" # and don't use much of it. # # The default value is 0. 2 will get you "out-of-memory" errors *much* earlier: you need lots of swap to make it sane. On the other hand, it will only raise errors when an application actually requests memory (which still might not be the process that is hogging the memory). 1 sounds as though it's more or less what you want. It goes on to say: # overcommit_ratio: # # When overcommit_memory is set to 2, the committed address # space is not permitted to exceed swap plus this percentage # of physical RAM. See above. Hope this helps, James. -- James Wilkinson | "In these troubled times, it's always refreshing to Exeter Devon UK | see a major company concentrating on vital issues. E-mail address: james | It would be even more refreshing if Compaq tried it @westexe.demon.co.uk | for once." -- The Inquirer
