public inbox for [email protected]  
help / color / mirror / Atom feed
From: Toru SHIMOGAKI <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Subject: avoiding a problem that postmaster is suddenly killed by OOM-Killer
Date: Fri, 02 Mar 2007 21:00:11 +0900
Message-ID: <[email protected]> (raw)

Hello all,

To avoid a problem that postmaster is suddenly killed by OOM-Killer, some
techniques are described in "16.4.3. Linux Memory Overcommit"
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.2/interactive/kernel-resources.html#AEN19362

 One way to avoid this problem is to run PostgreSQL on a machine where you can
 be sure that other processes will not run the machine out of memory.

 On Linux 2.6 and later, a better solution is to modify the kernel's behavior
 so that it will not "overcommit" memory. This is done by selecting strict
 overcommit mode via sysctl:

This description may be misread, at least to me, because OOM-Killer's behavor
has nothing to do with overcommit mode. It is true that turning overcommit off
is one of the solutions but it is not enough: OOM-Killer is invoked whenever
physical memory is exhausted not only by user application but also by in-kernel
working. I checked it with some kernel hackers on Linux-2.6.9-42 (RHEL4 Update4).

I think that to avoid this problem, "increasing swap area" should be added on
this manual. Increasing both physical memory and swap area is easy to
understand,  but increasing physical memory is not software solution.

Best regards,

-- 
Toru SHIMOGAKI<[email protected]>




view thread (3+ messages)  latest in thread

reply

Reply instructions:

You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:

* Reply to all the recipients using the --to and --cc options:
  reply via email

  To: [email protected]
  Cc: [email protected]
  Subject: Re: avoiding a problem that postmaster is suddenly killed by OOM-Killer
  In-Reply-To: <[email protected]>

* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
  and reply-to-all from there: mbox

This inbox is served by agora; see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox