Kernel memory management problem

[Valery Reznic]

--- On Mon, 3/2/09, Alexander Indenbaum <alexander.indenbaum at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: Alexander Indenbaum <alexander.indenbaum at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: Kernel memory management problem
> To: valery_reznic at yahoo.com
> Cc: "linux-il." <linux-il at cs.huji.ac.il>
> Date: Monday, March 2, 2009, 4:45 PM
> On Mon, Mar 2, 2009 at 4:35 PM, Valery Reznic
> <valery_reznic at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> Unfortunately this is real problem: if you do
> something
> >> like
> >> while(true) { transfer } then application crashes
> and burns
> >> in hell :)
> > Are you sure that culprit is kernel ?
> > May be "transfer" part has memory leak ?
> >
> > Did you try to run it under valgrind ?
> > or run top ?
> 
> Well, I have to fix myself. Eventually memory is reclaimed.
> The
> "transfer" applications do not grow, while
> observed in top. The
> "transfer" applications are from standard Unix
> tool set, so while bugs
> are possible I personally blame Linus :).
It's your right. The question is how effective it will help to solve your problem :)

Do you run a standard kernel or a custom one ?
Is your transfer program run alone or there are other applications
running ?
Kernel has parameter, something like "total over commit" - when
treshold  is reached even when there is a lot of FREE memory any single malloc or mmap will fail.

Valery.