From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from mail203.messagelabs.com (mail203.messagelabs.com [216.82.254.243]) by kanga.kvack.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1829E900086 for ; Fri, 15 Apr 2011 13:38:24 -0400 (EDT) Received: from d01relay03.pok.ibm.com (d01relay03.pok.ibm.com [9.56.227.235]) by e3.ny.us.ibm.com (8.14.4/8.13.1) with ESMTP id p3FHHHlv028864 for ; Fri, 15 Apr 2011 13:17:17 -0400 Received: from d01av04.pok.ibm.com (d01av04.pok.ibm.com [9.56.224.64]) by d01relay03.pok.ibm.com (8.13.8/8.13.8/NCO v10.0) with ESMTP id p3FHcMYX235262 for ; Fri, 15 Apr 2011 13:38:22 -0400 Received: from d01av04.pok.ibm.com (loopback [127.0.0.1]) by d01av04.pok.ibm.com (8.14.4/8.13.1/NCO v10.0 AVout) with ESMTP id p3FHcLTW018024 for ; Fri, 15 Apr 2011 13:38:21 -0400 Subject: [RFC][PATCH 0/3] track pte pages and use in OOM score From: Dave Hansen Date: Fri, 15 Apr 2011 10:38:21 -0700 Message-Id: <20110415173821.62660715@kernel> Sender: owner-linux-mm@kvack.org List-ID: To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Cc: linux-mm@kvack.org, Dave Hansen PTE pages are a relatively invisible memory user. Neither users nor the kernel have any way of telling how many of them any given application is using. Nefarious applications can also potentially tie up lagre amounts of memory in them: foo = malloc(big); touch(foo); madvise(foo, big, MADV_DONTNEED); That'll leave you with no RSS for "foo", but the pagetable pages will still be there. Do that enough times, and you can potentially harm the system. Even worse, the OOM killer will not necessarily go after such an application since the kernel has no record of the pages. For the containers and OpenVZ folks, pte pages are one of the main consumers of kernel memory. They should be able to use this code as well. -- To unsubscribe, send a message with 'unsubscribe linux-mm' in the body to majordomo@kvack.org. For more info on Linux MM, see: http://www.linux-mm.org/ . Fight unfair telecom internet charges in Canada: sign http://stopthemeter.ca/ Don't email: email@kvack.org