Re: configurability of OOM killer

From: Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us>
To: Florian Weimer <fweimer(at)bfk(dot)de>
Cc: Alvaro Herrera <alvherre(at)commandprompt(dot)com>, Pg Hackers <pgsql-hackers(at)postgresql(dot)org>
Subject: Re: configurability of OOM killer
Date: 2008-02-02 17:40:35
Message-ID: 7788.1201974035@sss.pgh.pa.us
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Florian Weimer <fweimer(at)bfk(dot)de> writes:
> * Alvaro Herrera:
>> I am wondering if we can set the system up so that it skips postmaster,

> How much does that help? Postmaster &c still need to be shut down
> when a regular backend dies due to SIGKILL.

The $64 problem is that if the parent postmaster process is victimized
by the OOM killer, you won't get an automatic restart. In most people's
eyes that is considerably worse than the momentary DOS imposed by a kill
of a child backend. And what we now find, which is truly staggeringly
stupid on the kernel's part, is that it *preferentially* kills the
parent instead of whatever child might actually be eating the memory.

regards, tom lane

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