Re: Overcommitable memory??

From: Olaf Weber (olaf@infovore.xs4all.nl)
Date: Sun Mar 19 2000 - 14:42:42 EST

Jesse Pollard writes:
> On Sat, 18 Mar 2000, Linda Walsh wrote:
>> Matija Nalis wrote:

>>> Say you have 800MB virtual RAM, and you simulation currently uses 500MB.
>>> And now, it tries to fork(2). Do you allow it, or does fork fail with
>>> -ENOMEM ?

>> Had exactly this problem in SoftWindows on IRIX. [...] Solution
>> was to convert to using 'sproc', where amount of process sharing
>> can be user defined -- something like a heavy-weight thread. [...]

> Does that include sharing the stack space? Doing so would seem to
> allow for corrupting the parent process stack.

IIRC the usual practice on IRIX is that the child gets a copy of the
parent's stack. The sproc call on IRIX can be compared to clone on
Linux. If you don't mind using linux-specific code, you can use a
clone call with CLONE_VM set. This works provided the child doesn't
attempt to return from the function that called clone. 

-- 
Olaf Weber

Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins,
        for they are quick to anger and have no need for subtlety.

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