mm: limit growth of 3% hardcoded other user reserve

[cascardo/linux.git] / Documentation / sysctl / vm.txt

diff --git a/Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt b/Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt
index 078701f..f698957 100644 (file)
--- a/Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt
+++ b/Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt
@@ -53,6 +53,7 @@ Currently, these files are in /proc/sys/vm:
 - percpu_pagelist_fraction
 - stat_interval
 - swappiness
+- user_reserve_kbytes
 - vfs_cache_pressure
 - zone_reclaim_mode
 
@@ -542,6 +543,7 @@ memory until it actually runs out.
 
 When this flag is 2, the kernel uses a "never overcommit"
 policy that attempts to prevent any overcommit of memory.
+Note that user_reserve_kbytes affects this policy.
 
 This feature can be very useful because there are a lot of
 programs that malloc() huge amounts of memory "just-in-case"
@@ -645,6 +647,24 @@ The default value is 60.
 
 ==============================================================
 
+- user_reserve_kbytes
+
+When overcommit_memory is set to 2, "never overommit" mode, reserve
+min(3% of current process size, user_reserve_kbytes) of free memory.
+This is intended to prevent a user from starting a single memory hogging
+process, such that they cannot recover (kill the hog).
+
+user_reserve_kbytes defaults to min(3% of the current process size, 128MB).
+
+If this is reduced to zero, then the user will be allowed to allocate
+all free memory with a single process, minus admin_reserve_kbytes.
+Any subsequent attempts to execute a command will result in
+"fork: Cannot allocate memory".
+
+Changing this takes effect whenever an application requests memory.
+
+==============================================================
+
 vfs_cache_pressure
 ------------------