From nobody Fri Jan 8 15:53:14 1999 Received: (from nobody@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id PAA13677; Fri, 8 Jan 1999 15:53:14 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from nobody) Message-Id: <199901082353.PAA13677@hub.freebsd.org> Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1999 15:53:14 -0800 (PST) From: bellcanada@hotmail.com To: freebsd-gnats-submit@freebsd.org Subject: If all memory fills up (VM and Real), nothing will run even if apps are closed to free up ram. Shutdown will not always work, and kernel reboot is common without a message. X-Send-Pr-Version: www-1.0 >Number: 9399 >Category: kern >Synopsis: If all memory fills up (VM and Real), nothing will run even if apps are closed to free up ram. Shutdown will not always work, and kernel reboot is common without a message. >Confidential: no >Severity: critical >Priority: high >Responsible: freebsd-bugs >State: closed >Quarter: >Keywords: >Date-Required: >Class: sw-bug >Submitter-Id: current-users >Arrival-Date: Fri Jan 8 16:00:00 PST 1999 >Closed-Date: Sat Jan 9 13:26:20 PST 1999 >Last-Modified: Sat Jan 9 13:27:23 PST 1999 >Originator: Bell Guy >Release: 2.2.6 >Organization: >Environment: FreeBSD 2.2.6 >Description: I noticed this (and many more oddities) after installing FreeBSD from a 4 cd dist. I originaly started with 20Megs of Ram, and a 5M swap. The resason for the small swap is because of drive space limitations. Even thought the docs say 8M will work, that is not the case. If the machine uses up all the ram and swap, it basicly hangs. You can type, and it is responsive, but you cannot run anything, not even ls. All fail with an error message like : Cannot malloc - out of memmory .... or somthing like that. I did notice thought after increasing my swap from 5 to 15M, the machine still didn't do anything after running out of ram, but it did recover EVENTUALLY after closing everything (down to just a standard outside of X prompt). This is severe because of DoS attacks. >How-To-Repeat: Fill up all your memory ... :) .. >Fix: Don't allow ANYONE to use up all memory.... >Release-Note: >Audit-Trail: From: Jin Guojun (FTG staff) To: bellcanada@hotmail.com, freebsd-gnats-submit@FreeBSD.ORG Cc: Subject: Re: kern/9399: If all memory fills up (VM and Real), nothing will run even if apps are closed to free up ram. Shutdown will not always work, and kernel reboot is common without a message. Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1999 18:02:51 -0800 (PST) This is not a bug if you had swap smaller than the real memory. look this: last pid: 1170; load averages: 0.28, 0.30, 0.25 17:51:58 39 processes: 3 running, 36 sleeping CPU states: 0.4% user, 0.0% nice, 0.4% system, 0.8% interrupt, 98.4% idle Mem: 37M Active, 6080K Inact, 14M Wired, 10M Cache, 8349K Buf, 26M Free Swap: 219M Total, 128K Used, 218M Free PID USERNAME PRI NICE SIZE RES STATE TIME WCPU CPU COMMAND 418 jin 2 0 8284K 8120K select 4:57 1.79% 1.79% netscape 378 jin 2 0 4340K 7908K select 2:20 1.18% 1.18% XF86_S3 If you have 5 MB swap, how can you swap out any of above processes to start a new process :-) Generally, you should have at least 1.5 times the real memory for your swap. 2.5 times of the real memory size swap is recommended. -Jin > I originaly started with 20Megs of Ram, and a 5M swap. The resason for the smal > l swap is because of drive space limitations. Even thought the docs say 8M will > work, that is not the case. If the machine uses up all the ram and swap, it ba > sicly hangs. You can type, and it is responsive, but you cannot run anything, n > ot even ls. All fail with an error message like : Cannot malloc - out of memmor > y .... or somthing like that. > > I did notice thought after increasing my swap from 5 to 15M, the machine still d > idn't do anything after running out of ram, but it did recover EVENTUALLY after > closing everything (down to just a standard outside of X prompt). > State-Changed-From-To: open->closed State-Changed-By: dg State-Changed-When: Sat Jan 9 13:26:20 PST 1999 State-Changed-Why: The minimum amount of swap supported isn't a specific value, but is actually the amount of RAM in the machine. In your case 20MB of swap is the minimum. >Unformatted: