Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!crdgw1!uunet!pmafire!uudell!sequoia!execu!cs.utexas.edu!helios!tamuts!n138ct
From: n138ct@tamuts.tamu.edu (Brent Burton)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.3b1
Subject: Re: SWAP Space:  How do you increase it above the default 5 meg?
Summary: speaking off the number of processes...
Keywords: max number of processes, 3.51, rocky, bullwinkle
Message-ID: <14503@helios.TAMU.EDU>
Date: 11 Apr 91 04:54:10 GMT
References: <1991Apr8.081311.18416@cbnewse.att.com> <1991Apr9.160921.11987@oswego.oswego.edu>
Sender: usenet@helios.TAMU.EDU
Followup-To: comp.sys.3b1
Distribution: usa
Organization: Texas A&M University
Lines: 23


speaking of swap space and the number of processes, how many processes
total (ignore memory constraints) can a UPC handle?

Try this program at home:  (got from comp.unix.wizards for how to crash a
                             unix system)
main()
{
	fork();
	main();
}

This program will doo-doo your system quite nicely.  Mine didn't crash,
but it took 10 minutes and numerous calls to 'killall' to zap this beast.
Within 5 minutes over 8000 new processes were started. Wow!
(It seemed once you killed one, a chain of hundreds would die.)

My system (20M, 2MR, 3.51 at th~re time) started killing processes due
to no swap space.
             +----------------------+--------------------------+
             | Brent P. Burton      | n138ct@tamuts.tamu.edu   |
             | Texas A&M University | Computer Science/Physics |
             +----------------------+--------------------------+