system() (via clone) fails on large process

Just installed rhel4's latest system.

Our process is calling the system() function to run
a command. This has always worked before, but now it gives
an error of ENOMEM,

strace says:

clone(child_stack=0, flags=CLONE_PARENT_SETTID|SIGCHLD,
parent_tidptr=0xfefed524) = -1 ENOMEM (Cannot allocate memory)

Now, our process is kinda a memory hog. We allocate a 3.6 gig bss section
and eventually it will actually use a lot of this memory. But in the early
part of the program, it sucessfully calls system(). However, after we
use the memory, i.e. read a big file into the memory, we try to call system()
again and it gets the error.

Is there some setting in /proc which I can use to allocate more resources
to whatever is running out.

Did the function system() change recently?

This is on a 6 gig ram system. The error occurred when it had grown to
1.5 gigs of ram.

$ cat /proc/version
Linux version 2.6.9-34.ELhugemem
(bhcompile@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx)
(gcc version 3.4.5 20051201 (Red Hat 3.4.5-2))
#1 SMP Fri Feb 24 17:04:34 EST 2006





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