On 4/8/22 05:59, Michal Hocko wrote: > On Fri 08-04-22 05:40:09, Nico Pache wrote: >> >> >> On 4/8/22 05:36, Michal Hocko wrote: >>> On Fri 08-04-22 04:52:33, Nico Pache wrote: >>> [...] >>>> In a heavily contended CPU with high memory pressure the delay may also >>>> lead to other processes unnecessarily OOMing. >>> >>> Let me just comment on this part because there is likely a confusion >>> inlved. Delaying the oom_reaper _cannot_ lead to additional OOM killing >>> because the the oom killing is throttled by existence of a preexisting >>> OOM victim. In other words as long as there is an alive victim no >>> further victims are not selected and the oom killer backs off. The >>> oom_repaer will hide the alive oom victim after it is processed. >>> The longer the delay will be the longer an oom victim can block a >>> further progress but it cannot really cause unnecessary OOMing. >> Is it not the case that if we delay an OOM, the amount of available memory stays >> limited and other processes that are allocating memory can become OOM candidates? > > No. Have a look at oom_evaluate_task (tsk_is_oom_victim check). Ok I see. Doesnt the delay then allow the system to run into the following case more easily?: pr_warn("Out of memory and no killable processes...\n"); panic("System is deadlocked on memory\n"); If the system cant select another OOM candidate, the oom_reaper is delayed, and the exit is blocked, then we panic. -- Nico