On Fri, 2014-04-18 at 11:18 +0200, Manfred Spraul wrote: > System V shared memory > > a) can be abused to trigger out-of-memory conditions and the standard > measures against out-of-memory do not work: > > - it is not possible to use setrlimit to limit the size of shm segments. > > - segments can exist without association with any processes, thus > the oom-killer is unable to free that memory. > > b) is typically used for shared information - today often multiple GB. > (e.g. database shared buffers) > > The current default is a maximum segment size of 32 MB and a maximum total > size of 8 GB. This is often too much for a) and not enough for b), which > means that lots of users must change the defaults. > > This patch increases the default limits to ULONG_MAX, which is perfect for > case b). The defaults are used after boot and as the initial value for > each new namespace. > > Admins/distros that need a protection against a) should reduce the limits > and/or enable shm_rmid_forced. > > Further notes: > - The patch only changes the boot time default, overrides behave as before: > # sysctl kernel/shmall=33554432 > would recreate the previous limit for SHMMAX (for the current namespace). > > - Disabling sysv shm allocation is possible with: > # sysctl kernel.shmall=0 > (not a new feature, also per-namespace) > > - ULONG_MAX is not really infinity, but 18 Exabyte segment size and > 75 Zettabyte total size. This should be enough for the next few weeks. > (assuming a 64-bit system with 4k pages) > > Risks: > - The patch breaks installations that use "take current value and increase > it a bit". [seems to exist, http://marc.info/?l=linux-mm&m=139638334330127] This really scares me. The probability of occurrence is now much higher, and not just theoretical. It would legitimately break userspace. -- To unsubscribe, send a message with 'unsubscribe linux-mm' in the body to majordomo@xxxxxxxxx. For more info on Linux MM, see: http://www.linux-mm.org/ . Don't email: <a href=mailto:"dont@xxxxxxxxx";> email@xxxxxxxxx </a>