From owner-freebsd-current Thu Feb 4 21:57:02 1999 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id VAA00408 for freebsd-current-outgoing; Thu, 4 Feb 1999 21:57:02 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from nhj.nlc.net.au (nhj.nlc.net.au [203.24.133.1]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id VAA00403 for ; Thu, 4 Feb 1999 21:56:59 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from john.saunders@nlc.net.au) Received: (qmail 18209 invoked by uid 1000); 5 Feb 1999 16:56:55 +1100 Date: 5 Feb 1999 16:56:55 +1100 Message-ID: <19990205055655.18199.qmail@nhj.nlc.net.au> From: "John Saunders" To: Brian Feldman Cc: freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: swapper BIG problems X-Newsgroups: nlc.lists.freebsd-current In-Reply-To: User-Agent: tin/pre-1.4-980818 ("Laura") (UNIX) (Linux/2.0.37 (i686)) Sender: owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG In nlc.lists.freebsd-current you wrote: > It succeeds as per allocating the memory until the swap is full. But, when Malloc's don't cause swap space allocation. Theoretically a process can malloc all of it's virtual address space so long as it doesn't touch the pages. > it starts the reading/freeing, the swapins cause hundreds of > swap_pager_getswapspace: failed Once you actually start touching the pages does swap space (or real memory) get allocated. However by now you have malloc'ed more data than exists in physical swap space, and the swapper can't do anything about it except throw away your dirty pages without saving them. > This will put the system in a deadlock if, for instance, this program is run > in an xterm and an X server is running locally, and it's too swapped out to > be used, but the memory program displays things to the term (catch-22). This is a problem. Possibly the print commands should be rate limited. If they go to the console how do they end up in an xterm? Possibly your syslog.conf, or you run xconsole. Cheers. -- +------------------------------------------------------------+ . | John Saunders - mailto:john@nlc.net.au (EMail) | ,--_|\ | - http://www.nlc.net.au/ (WWW) | / Oz \ | - 02-9489-4932 or 041-822-3814 (Phone) | \_,--\_/ | NHJ NORTHLINK COMMUNICATIONS - Supplying a professional, | v | and above all friendly, internet connection service. | +------------------------------------------------------------+ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message