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by bch 2514 days ago
This is sort of just kicking the problem down the road. Your idea actually might work for (presumably) low-volume use ssh, but what about the next important service? When does the work-around to a papered-over work-around to a virtual problem that is supposed to just be RAM-backed or handled at

  ptr = malloc(42);
  if(!ptr) exit_error();
end?
1 comments
NikkiA 2514 days ago
Well, there probably needs to be a way to override the heuristic at least, sort of a 'this process is important, don't auto-kill it if trying to find memory'.

As for ssh specifically, I rarely ssh into my desktop machine, but I keep sshd running for just this kind of situation where I might need to try and rescue a swamped machine. So in most cases low-volume sshd use is exactly what is called for.

If you're running into the memory purge of doom on a server that's probably a whole different nightmare scenario.

malloc returning NULL has been a broken assumption for a long time though, and that isn't going to change afaik.

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