kernel killing processes when out of swap

[Bruce M Simpson]

On Tue, Apr 12, 2005 at 05:24:15AM -0700, ALeine wrote:
> machine. Having a flag to tag processes as vital to prevent them from getting
> killed (or to give them lower next-to-be-killed priority so that all non-vital
> processes get killed first) when you run out of swap would be a useful feature,

P_SYSTEM provides something like this feature, amongst others. It is used by
init(8).  However P_SYSTEM also says that process statistics should not be
maintained, and that the signals that may be dispatched to such processes
are restricted.

It would be more appropriate if such processes use the mlockall(2) call for
the time being.

BMS