On 2/5/06, Michael Green
On 2/2/06, Steve Graegert
wrote: Yes it does, I'm sure yours will die too unless you have nproc cap either at the level of shell or PAM.
What's your kernel version, shell you're using, current ulimit settings. And, do you have the code of the fork bomb you ran? I'd really like to take a look at it. Thanks.
Just tested again fork bombing the machine I've described (above) by running this simple bash shell forkbomb g8:~ # :(){ :|:& };: and within a couple of seconds it immediately came to a grinding halt. No limits were configured.
If now limits are configured, it's no surprise that the system locks
up. I can't remember if SuSE default installations have no limits
configured. Most other systems I worked with have quite strict limits
imposed by default.
The kernel does not prevent users from creating as many processes as
they think they will need. There is no built-in limit, although the
number of processes is limited to 2^16 or 2^32 (the numbers are
confusing; different sources, different numbers).
\Steve
--
Steve Graegert