Re: kernel hangs quickly - non-root user reproducible

On Sun, 13 Jul 2008 16:23:03 +0200 H.Janssen <henny@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
| Hello,
|
| phil-news-nospam@xxxxxxxx wrote:
|
|> On Sun, 13 Jul 2008 08:26:42 +0200 Lennart Benschop <lennartb@xxxxxxxxx>
|> wrote:
|> | phil-news-nospam@xxxxxxxx wrote:
|> |
|> |> I've been able to quickly (sometimes instantly) cause the kernel to
|> |> hang or
|> |> crash via a shell command by a non-root user. The magic command is
|> |> LONG:
|> |
|> |>
|
| Funny command.... But the Linux kernel does not crash, the command only lets
| BASH eat up all available memory, and the kernel runs into problems just
| like with any other program which takes all memory.
|
| Just give the command "ulimit -v 200000" and try again....
|
| Anyhow, this indicates that it's wise to implement some limitations in
| virtual memory usage if there are users which might try such funny
| commands...

I do have other computers that do not hang or crash. It could be something
about how I have things configured on this one machine. Or it could be some
bad code in parts specific to this machine configuration. Or it could just
be bad hardware that has impact only on some specific instructions.

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