On Tue, 14 Jun 2022 at 13:33, Robert Elz <k...@munnari.oz.au> wrote: > > NetBSD implements overcommitted swap - many processes malloc() > (or mmap() which that really becomes in the current implementation) > far more memory than they're ever going to actually use. It is only > when some real physical memory is required (rather than simply a marker > "zero filled page might be required here") that the system actually > allocates any real resources. Similarly pages mapped from a file only > need swap space if they're altered - otherwise the file serves as the > backing store for it. > > Once upon a time there was a method to turn overcommitted swap off, and > require actual allocations (of RAM or swap) to be made for all reserved > (virtual) memory. I used to enable that all the time - but I haven't seen > any mention of it in ages, and the mechanism might no longer still exist.
What might be interesting is a way to influence the order in which processes are chosen to kill... David
