Re: Discussion on my OOM killer API

[Ingo Oeser <ingo.oeser@informatik.tu-chemnitz.de>]

On Fri, Oct 27, 2000 at 06:36:13PM +0100, James Sutherland wrote:
> > If I do the full blown variant of my patch: 
> EBADIDEA. The kernel's OOM killer is a last ditch "something's going to
> die - who's first?" - adding extra bloat like this is BAD.
 
Ok. So it's easier for me ;-)

> Policy should be decided user-side, and should prevent the kernel-side
> killer EVER triggering.
 
So your user space OOM handler would like to be notified on
memory *pressure* (not only about OOM)? You would like to shrink
image caches and the like with it? Sounds sane. 

But then we need information on _how_ much memory we need. I
could pass allocation "priority" to user space, but I doubt that
will be descriptive enough.

> I was planning to implement a user-side OOM killer myself - perhaps we
> could split the work, you do kernel-side, I'll do the userspace bits?

If you could clarify, what events you actually like to get, I
could implement this a loadable OOM handler.

But still my patch is much more flexible, since it even allows to
panic & reboot. I would prefer that on embedded systems, which
boot _really_ fast, over blowing the system by adding mutally
watching to my important processes.

Regards

Ingo Oeser
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