Re: 2.2/2.4/2.6 VMs: do malloc() ever return NULL?

[Richard B. Johnson]

On Tue, 25 Nov 2003, Ihar 'Philips' Filipau wrote:

As documented, malloc() will never fail as long as there
is still address space (not memory) available. This is
the required nature of the over-commit strategy. This is
necessary because many programs never even touch all the
memory they allocate.

You can turn OFF over-commit by doing:

echo "2" >proc/sys/vm/overcommit_memory

However, you will probably find that many programs fail
or seg-fault when normally they wouldn't. So, if you don't
mind restarting sendmail occasionally, then turn off over-commit.


Cheers,
Dick Johnson
Penguin : Linux version 2.4.22 on an i686 machine (797.90 BogoMips).
            Note 96.31% of all statistics are fiction.


-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/