Re: Can't find thread on Linux memory overcommit

On Thu, 21 Aug 2003, Andrew Dunstan wrote:

> Linux kernel version 2.4.* has poor default memory overcommit behavior,
> which can result in the postmaster being killed by the kernel due to
> memory demands by another process if the system runs out of memory. To
> avoid this situation, run postgres on a machine where you can be sure
> that other processes will not run the machine out of memory.

I would also note that the OOM killer logs its evil deeds:

printk(KERN_ERR "Out of Memory: Killed process %d (%s).\n", p->pid, p->comm);

So there's no need to wonder whether that's a source of trouble for your
PostgreSQL processes or not; just check the logs. I've had the OOM killer
go after large Perl processes and X, but never (yet) PostgreSQL, I'm happy
to say.

Jon