Re: Discussion on my OOM killer API

[James Sutherland <jas88@cam.ac.uk>]

On Fri, 27 Oct 2000, Ingo Oeser wrote:

> On Fri, Oct 27, 2000 at 12:58:44AM +0100, James Sutherland wrote:
> > Which begs the question, where did the userspace OOM policy daemon go? It,
> > coupled with Rik's simple in-kernel last-ditch handler, should cover most
> > eventualities without the need for nasty kernel kludges.
> 
> If I do the full blown variant of my patch: 
> 
> echo "my-kewl-oom-killer" >/proc/sys/vm/oom_handler
> 
> will try to load the module with this name for a new one and
> uninstall the old one.

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.

Policy should be decided user-side, and should prevent the kernel-side
killer EVER triggering.

> The original idea was an simple "I install a module and lock it
> into memory" approach[1] for kernel hackers, which is _really_
> easy to to and flexibility for nothing[2].
> 
> If the Rik and Linus prefer the user-accessable variant via
> /proc, I'll happily implement this.
> 
> I just intended to solve a "religious" discussion via code
> instead of words ;-)

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?


James.

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