From: s_titz@ira.uka.de (Olaf Titz)
Subject: Re: while(1){fork();} ???
Date: 15 Jun 1993 15:05:26 GMT
In article <1vkifp$mis@smurf.sub.org> urlichs@smurf.sub.org (Matthias Urlichs) writes:
> > Linux then had trouble giving me streams resources for command completion[...]
>
> Hmm, since Linux doesn't have Streams (yet!), there must have been a
> different reason for this.
Probably the error message was "Can't make pipes for command
substitution". This occurs when out of process table slots. But it can
be ignored, the only thing affected seems to be the prompt and
command-completion behaviour.
I have tried the fork bomb many times for stability test and never got
any problems beyond this (unaesthetical but harmless) behaviour. Since
Linux gives only half (or two-thirds, etc. configurable) of all
processes to one user, there is still enough room in the process table
for even more sophisticated things like kill `ps -aux | awk ... ` or
similar.
I highly doubt that a simple fork bomb could bring the machine down in
any way.
Olaf
--
olaf titz o olaf@bigred.ka.sub.org praetorius@irc
comp.sc.student _>\ _ s_titz@ira.uka.de LINUX - the choice
karlsruhe germany (_)<(_) uknf@dkauni2.bitnet of a GNU generation
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