*BSD News Article 60061


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From: blarson@sundry.hsc.usc.edu (Bob Larson)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.solaris,comp.unix.aix
Subject: Re: Memory overcommit (was Re: ISP hardware/software choices (performance comparison))
Date: 19 Jan 1996 21:30:33 GMT
Organization: USC Health Care Information Systems
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References: <4cmopu$d35@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <4digah$a7r@durban.vector.co.za> <4dklfv$27e@park.uvsc.edu> <4dlrag$fmn@nntpb.cb.att.com>
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In article <4dlrag$fmn@nntpb.cb.att.com>,
John S. Dyson <dyson@inuxs.inh.att.com> wrote:
>I think that allowing properly designed overcommit can give breathing room in
>many applications.

Just what, pray tell, do you consider "properly designed overcommit"?

As a system administrator, I've been bitten hard by badly designed
overcommit on AIX systems.  (The only workaround is to add way more
paging space than you'll ever use, so this is wasting hudreds of
megabytes of disk per system.)

Overcommit may have its uses, but does not belong on a production
machine.  (AIX's habit of killing important processes least likly to
be causing the problem first just makes it worse -- and no I don't
have source code to make the stupid AIX-specific signal ignoring
modification.)
-- 
Bob Larson (blars)	work: blarson@usc.edu	home: blarson@blars.la.ca.us
		www: http://sundry.hsc.usc.edu/blars.html
	It [the Internet] scares any sane person.  -- Erik Fair
	It scares a few of the rest of us too.  -- Dave Crocker