Zack's Kernel News
Container-Aware Cgroups
Roman Gushchin didn't like the way the out-of-memory (OOM) killer targeted individual processes for termination. On a system with many virtual systems on top, he said, the current OOM killer would not behave ideally. It would not recognize individual processes as belonging to particular containers, so it might unexpectedly kill some random process within the container. Or a very large container might not be recognized as a proper target for the OOM killer if it simply contained a large number of very small processes. The OOM killer might target a much smaller container instead, only because that container had a couple of large processes.
Roman wanted to address these problems by creating an OOM killer that would treat a single container as having the size of all processes running within it. Then the OOM killer might properly target that container and kill all the processes associated with it. In cases where no such containers existed, the OOM killer would fall back to its traditional per-process targeting system.
He posted a patch to implement this, but Michal Hocko objected. The real problem with the OOM killer is similar to the problem with context switching, in which the kernel switches rapidly between processes to give the illusion that they are all running simultaneously. The problem with context-switching algorithms is that different user behaviors call for different switching algorithms; the same is true for the OOM killer. There's no obviously correct way to choose which process to kill during OOM conditions.
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Akamai Will Host kernel.org
The organization dedicated to cloud-based solutions has agreed to host kernel.org to deliver long-term stability for the development team.
-
Linux Kernel 6.14 Released
The latest Linux kernel has arrived with extra Rust support and more.
-
EndeavorOS Mercury Neo Available
A new release from the EndeavorOS team ships with Plasma 6.3 and other goodies.
-
Fedora 42 Beta Has Arrived
The Fedora Project has announced the availability of the first beta release for version 42 of the open-source distribution.
-
Dash to Panel Maintainer Quits
Charles Gagnon has stepped away as maintainer of the popular Dash to Panel Gnome extension.
-
CIQ Releases Security-Hardened Version of Rocky Linux
If you're looking for an enterprise-grade Linux distribution that is hardened for business use, there's a new version of Rocky Linux that's sure to make you and your company happy.
-
Gnome’s Dash to Panel Extension Gets a Massive Update
If you're a fan of the Gnome Dash to Panel extension, you'll be thrilled to hear that a new version has been released with a dock mode.
-
Blender App Makes it to the Big Screen
The animated film "Flow" won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature at the 97th Academy Awards held on March 2, 2025 and Blender was a part of it.
-
Linux Mint Retools the Cinnamon App Launcher
The developers of Linux Mint are working on an improved Cinnamon App Launcher with a better, more accessible UI.
-
New Linux Tool for Security Issues
Seal Security is launching a new solution to automate fixing Linux vulnerabilities.