[arch-general] resource limits, unable to run apps

[Marek Otahal]

On Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 11:50 PM, canyonknight at gmail.com
<canyonknight at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 4:39 PM, Marek Otahal <markotahal at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi guys,
>>
>> in last days i'm severely bugged by some resource limits on my machine..my applications fail to run
>> etc.
>>
>> I'm running on a netbook that is slow by default, but i've been on it for a few years and it was ok.
>> I'm running normal KDE, IM client, kmail, firefox (with a lot, cca 30) tabs open, a konsole and
>> netbeans ide.
>>
>> The thing is I remember I once played with some limits to avoid forkbombs etc..so my question is if
>> you could point me to some files to check for configs?
>>
>> This is my top output:
>> $ top
>> top - 22:19:59 up 1 day,  7:19,  3 users,  load average: 1.06, 1.56, 1.34
>> Tasks: 199 total,   1 running, 196 sleeping,   0 stopped,   2 zombie
>> Cpu(s):  1.8%us,  2.5%sy,  0.0%ni, 95.7%id,  0.0%wa,  0.0%hi,  0.0%si,  0.0%st
>> Mem:   2055224k total,  1748036k used,   307188k free,    13632k buffers
>> Swap:  2561304k total,   938420k used,  1622884k free,  1119728k cached
>>
>>  PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND
>> 20689 marek     20   0  223m  60m  17m S    4  3.0   2:08.92 skype
>>  1322 root      20   0  113m  21m 4552 S    1  1.1  65:50.10 X
>>  3385 marek     20   0  6124  840  604 S    1  0.0  15:13.67 scdaemon
>>  6421 marek     20   0  936m 137m  16m S    1  6.9   0:59.12 java
>>  6832 marek     20   0  2576 1032  756 R    1  0.1   0:01.37 top
>>  3216 marek     20   0  115m  12m 7156 S    1  0.6  31:17.96 konsole
>> 22696 marek     20   0  177m 8828 5240 S    1  0.4   6:52.92 kget
>>  2707 marek     20   0  5576  344  212 S    0  0.0   2:52.82 gpg-agent
>>  3275 marek     20   0  119m 5124 3136 S    0  0.2   2:36.09 kleopatra
>>  3449 marek     20   0  101m 4280 2720 S    0  0.2   0:57.63 klipper
>>  6451 root      20   0     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:23.52 kworker/0:2
>>    1 root      20   0  1880   24    0 S    0  0.0   0:19.49 init
>>    2 root      20   0     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.06 kthreadd
>>    3 root      20   0     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:03.84 ksoftirqd/0
>>    6 root      RT   0     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 migration/0
>>   13 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 cpuset
>>   14 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 khelper
>>   15 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 netns
>>   16 root      20   0     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.25 sync_supers
>>   17 root      20   0     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 bdi-default
>>   18 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 kblockd
>>   20 root      20   0     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.14 khungtaskd
>>
>> Ulimit says
>> $ ulimit -a
>> core file size          (blocks, -c) 0
>> data seg size           (kbytes, -d) unlimited
>> scheduling priority             (-e) 30
>> file size               (blocks, -f) unlimited
>> pending signals                 (-i) 16028
>> max locked memory       (kbytes, -l) 80000
>> max memory size         (kbytes, -m) unlimited
>> open files                      (-n) 1024
>> pipe size            (512 bytes, -p) 8
>> POSIX message queues     (bytes, -q) 819200
>> real-time priority              (-r) 75
>> stack size              (kbytes, -s) 8192
>> cpu time               (seconds, -t) unlimited
>> max user processes              (-u) 250
>> virtual memory          (kbytes, -v) unlimited
>> file locks                      (-x) unlimited
>>
>>
>> and I use pm-utils, should that matter?
>>
>> I used to run the system under similar load and it was ok, now eg. my compiles in netbeans fail,
>> says OutOfMemoryException or sometimes cannot create a new native thread. (openjdk), also
>> command line tools fail with things like
>> $ man scdaemon
>> man: fork failed: Resource temporarily unavailable
>> I wonder is it the memory consumed by netbeans or some number of process/open files limit or
>> something?
>>
>> I'm glad for any suggestions, as now if i want to develop in java, i have to shut down browser, chat
>> and even though...
>>
>> Thank you, Mark
>>
>> PS: i know..but now i'd not like to hear suggestions like using a lighter DE or buying better hw ;)
>>
>> --
>>
>> Marek Otahal :o)
>
> Hello,
>
> Since you mention messing around with forkbomb prevention, I'm
> thinking something was changed when you were doing that. The failed
> fork error from man also hints at that.
>
> Try running the following commands and then check if those errors
> still persist. They are arbitrarily large limits that you shouldn't
> hit.
> ulimit -u 8000
> sysctl -w kernel.threads-max=50000
>
> If that doesn't work you could check the following files for some
> potential problem configurations:
> /etc/security/limits.conf
> /etc/sysctl.conf
>
> Good luck,
>
> Jason
> (canyonknight)
>
Thank you Jason,
/etc/security/limits.conf was the one i was messing with before,
raised #processes to 400
and problems seem gone :) (Though wondering, I was running ~180, so
not near that 250 anyway..)
Cheers, Mark



-- 
Marek Otahal :o)