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Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watnot!watmath!clyde!cbatt!ihnp4!houxm!hoxna!lou
From: lou@hoxna.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.bugs.sys5
Subject: Re: Sys V handling of insufficient swap space.
Message-ID: <1078@hoxna.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 3-Mar-87 14:12:42 EST
Article-I.D.: hoxna.1078
Posted: Tue Mar  3 14:12:42 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 6-Mar-87 00:12:41 EST
References: <1035@wang7.UUCP>
Organization: Bell Labs, Holmdel,N.J
Lines: 19
Keywords: swap crash
Summary: So provide lots of swap space.


I've removed .wizards from the subject line, because I sure ain't no 
wizard !

> < Sys5 doesn't handle running out of swap space well.  A program
> that supposedly demonstrates this is provided >

	First of all, your program won't run on many systems,
hoxna included, because that huge auto array you allocate won't fit
on the stack.  (We're not *all* running Amdahls, y'know).

	Second of all, well, you're right, "out of swap space", CRASH ! ,
isn't the most elegant way to handle it, but it seems to me if it happens
more than more than say twice, you've got malicious users or need to re-tune
your system.  But the only way I can see to do things differently would be
to kill the proccess asking for the fatal pages, and that could conceivably
cause just as many problems.

                                                     lou @ hoxna