Re: [PATCH] VM fix for 2.4.0-test9 & OOM handler

[Jamie Lokier]

Andreas Dilger wrote:
> Having a SIGDANGER handler is good for 2 reasons:
> 1) Lets processes know when memory is short so they can free needless cache.
> 2) Mark process with a SIGDANGER handler as "more important" than those
>    without.  Most people won't care about this, but init, and X, and
>    long-running simulations might.

For point 1, it would be much nicer to have user processes participate
in memory balancing _before_ getting anywhere near an OOM state.

A nice way is to send SIGDANGER with siginfo saying how much memory the
kernel wants back (or how fast).  Applications that don't know to use
that info, but do have a SIGDANGER handler, will still react just rather
more severely.

-- Jamie
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