Re:Writing a JPEG Decoder in Rust – Part 2: Implementation I
by wahern on Friday August 19, 2016 @10:09PM
(#12324750)
I do. Not only do I disable overcommit, I disable swap.
Most software is riddled with buffer overflows and other exploits, and yet it's rare that you come across an intruder while he's installing his rootkit. That doesn't mean it's not happening, just that people are ignorant about it; and that things can appear normal even with rootkits installed.
Like buffer bloat, people can be experiencing a problem without even realizing it's a problem. When software crashes under load they just think that it's _normal_ to crash under load.
Or when it crawls to a snails pace under load because it's swapping like mad, they think that's normal, even though QoS would have been much better if the software failed the requests it couldn't serve rather than slowing everybody down until they _all_ timeout, sometimes even preventing administrators from diagnosing and fixing the problem.
OOM provides back pressure. Back pressure is much more reliable and responsive than, e.g., relying on magic constants for what kind of load you _think_ can be handled.
Most software is riddled with buffer overflows and other exploits, and yet it's rare that you come across an intruder while he's installing his rootkit. That doesn't mean it's not happening, just that people are ignorant about it; and that things can appear normal even with rootkits installed.
Like buffer bloat, people can be experiencing a problem without even realizing it's a problem. When software crashes under load they just think that it's _normal_ to crash under load.
Or when it crawls to a snails pace under load because it's swapping like mad, they think that's normal, even though QoS would have been much better if the software failed the requests it couldn't serve rather than slowing everybody down until they _all_ timeout, sometimes even preventing administrators from diagnosing and fixing the problem.
OOM provides back pressure. Back pressure is much more reliable and responsive than, e.g., relying on magic constants for what kind of load you _think_ can be handled.