Quoting Christopher Mahmood (ckm@interearth.com) on Mon, Apr 23, 2001 at 06:57:53PM +0200:

* Andreas Siegert (afx@atsec.com) [010423 03:02]:

...

This is a security hole if you ask me. Especially when seeing a non privileged user process eating up resources quickly. That should not happen, even without explicit ulimits.

No, it's an admin error. There's no reason that the kernel should assume it's smarter than you.

Of course the admin should set limits. But a kernel going bonkers over run-away processes is a kernel error, not an admin error.

...

AIX had the same problem some yaers ago, then the changed the algorithm for killing processes in that situation and nowadays it seems to be killing the offender most of the time.

If that's correct then this sounds like one more reason not to run AIX.

Well, at least AIX doesn't kill random processes but the ones causing the problem. One more reason to run AIX IMNSHO. cheers afx -- atsec information security GmbH Phone: +49-89-44249830 Steinstrasse 68 Fax: +49-89-44249831 D-81667 Muenchen, Germany WWW: www.atsec.com May the Source be with you!