Re: PostgreSQL 8.0.6 crash

On Thu, Feb 09, 2006 at 11:42:57AM -0500, Mark Woodward wrote:
> > "Mark Woodward" <pgsql(at)mohawksoft(dot)com> writes:
> >> Still, I would say that is is extremly bad behavior for not having
> >> stats, wouldn't you think?
> >
> > Think of it as a kernel bug.
>
> While I respect your viewpoint that the Linux kernel should not kill an
> offending process if the system runs out of memory, I sort of disagree in
> that OOM is a disaster preventor. It should be viewed as a last ditch "him
> or me" choice the kernel needs to make and it should not get into that
> position in the first place.

I've had processes run away on a FreeBSD box before, to the extent of
running entirely out of swap and memory. Instead of random processes
just dying for no apparent reason, I instead started getting a bunch of
out-of-memory errors. No disaster, I just fixed the problem and life
went on.

Well, ok, the box did become rather unresponsive when my fix for the
problem meant that all the sudden there were about 950 perl processes
trying to run at the same time. I wish I'd captured top showing 900+
runnable processes. But after a few minutes the processes started
completing and exiting and everything was soon back to normal. I rather
doubt Linux would survive that...
--
Jim C. Nasby, Sr. Engineering Consultant jnasby(at)pervasive(dot)com
Pervasive Software http://pervasive.com work: 512-231-6117
vcard: http://jim.nasby.net/pervasive.vcf cell: 512-569-9461