-<!-- $PostgreSQL: pgsql/doc/src/sgml/runtime.sgml,v 1.392 2007/12/17 14:00:52 momjian Exp $ -->
+<!-- $PostgreSQL: pgsql/doc/src/sgml/runtime.sgml,v 1.393 2007/12/22 05:13:03 momjian Exp $ -->
<chapter Id="runtime">
<title>Operating System Environment</title>
<para>
On Linux 2.6 and later, an additional measure is to modify the
kernel's behavior so that it will not <quote>overcommit</> memory.
- Although this setting will not prevent the OOM killer from
- being invoked altogether, it will lower the chances significantly and
- will therefore lead to more robust system behavior. (It might also
- cause <function>fork()</> to fail when the machine appears to have
- available memory but it is actually reserved
- to other applications with careless memory allocation.) This
- is done by selecting strict overcommit mode via
- <command>sysctl</command>:
+ Although this setting will not prevent the <ulink
+ url="http://lwn.net/Articles/104179/">OOM killer</> from being invoked
+ altogether, it will lower the chances significantly and will therefore
+ lead to more robust system behavior. This is done by selecting strict
+ overcommit mode via <command>sysctl</command>:
<programlisting>
sysctl -w vm.overcommit_memory=2
</programlisting>