KernelTrap: Problems From Removing The OOM-Killer
Oct 17, 2003, 21:00 (3 Talkback[s])
[ Thanks to Jeremy
Andrews for this link. ]
"With the release of 2.4.23-pre4, the OOM-killer was removed
from the 2.4 stable Linux kernel. 2.4 kernel maintainer Marcelo
Tosatti reflected on recent problems this has created.
"The particular example was regarding changed behavior when
doing 'gzip -dc file | less' with a 280MB file on a system that
doesn't have enough RAM. Prior to the OOM-killer having been
removed, 'less' was properly being killed. However since
2.4.23-pre4 was released other process are also being killed.
Marcello summarizes, 'So a lot of processes which should not
get killed are dying. This is really bad. I was afraid it could
happen and it did. What now? Resurrect OOM-killer?' The
resulting discussion did not lead to a definite conclusion, though
it looks likely that the OOM-killer will find it's way back into
the 2.4 kernel before 2.4.23 is released..."
Complete
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