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then there's over-commit, e.g. "you want to malloc 200% of the ram? here you go! enjoy! oh wait, you wrote to the second half? have fun finding the power button
by adavies42 15y ago
then there's over-commit, e.g. "you want to malloc 200% of the ram? here you go! enjoy! oh wait, you wrote to the second half? have fun finding the power button, sucker!"
can someone explain to me why so many distros, including "enterprise" server stuff, ship with /proc/sys/vm/overcommit_memory set to 1?
- aliguori 15y agoMost software cannot cope with malloc failing. A little swapping is at least recoverable. A failed malloc almost guarantees that your application will crash--sometimes in a very unpleasant way.
- adavies42 15y agoime the main alternative is the box crashing, frequently without leaving behind enough information to know what went wrong. at least if the app crashes you have a pretty good idea who was incompetent.