limits for run away Firefox ?

[Doug Barton]

No offense was implied, thus the smiley. ;)

Doug

Sent from my iPhone

On Jan 19, 2010, at 1:54 PM, Oliver Fromme <olli at lurza.secnetix.de>  
wrote:

>
> Rick C. Petty wrote:
>> On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 12:25:43PM -0800, Doug Barton wrote:
>>> On 01/18/10 11:29, Oliver Fromme wrote:
>>>> Doug Barton wrote:
>>>>> On 01/17/10 17:07, Julian H. Stacey wrote:
>>>>>> Hi hackers
>>>>>> I'm tired of my X server occasionaly freezing, swap thrasing, &  
>>>>>> firefox dumps:
>>>>>>      4,346,937,344 ~/firefox-bin.core
>>>>>> so as a temporary cludge I ran
>>>>>>      touch ~/firefox-bin.core ; chmod 000  ~/firefox-bin.core
>>>>>
>>>>> Sorry I don't have a solution to your actual problem, but a  
>>>>> better way
>>>>> to deal with this is to do: ln -s /dev/null ~/firefox-bin.core
>>>>
>>>> I think not generating a core dump at all is better than
>>>> writing 4 GB to /dev/null.
>>>
>>> A) The method I proposed is useful for other things too, and as you
>>> pointed out it can sometimes be difficult to track down all the  
>>> ways a
>>> given thing is started.
>>
>> What about just adding the limit command to the /usr/local/bin/ 
>> firefox
>> script?  That would guarantee any instantiation of firefox wouldn't  
>> dump
>> core.
>
> Many users probably don't want any core dumps at all, so
> disabling them completely would be the best and easiest
> solution for them.  This can be done globally (either with
> the sysctl or via /etc/login.conf) or per-user via
> ~/.login_conf.  Then you don't have to track down the
> ways a given thing is started.
>
>>> B) If we're going to be snarky, it would be far better if it  
>>> didn't need
>>> to dump core in the first place. :)
>>
>> I don't think that Oliver was at all snarky.
>
> The word "snarky" isn't even in my dictionary, so I can
> only guess what it means.
>
> Anyway, my suggestion was meant to be completely serious,
> without any irony or other undertone.  I'm not a native
> English speaker, so maybe my words expressed a meaning
> that wasn't intended.  In that case please allow me to
> apologize.
>
>> But I agree that it would be nice to prevent ffox from segfaulting;
>
> Definitely.  I agree, too.  However, that's a lot more
> difficult than preventing core dumps being written.
>
>> unfortunately this is one of those apps which segfaults a lot (for  
>> me at
>> least).  =)
>
> One of the reasons why I prefer Opera.  :)
>
> Best regards
>   Oliver
>
> -- 
> Oliver Fromme, secnetix GmbH & Co. KG, Marktplatz 29, 85567 Grafing  
> b. M.
> Handelsregister: Registergericht Muenchen, HRA 74606,  Geschäftsfueh 
> rung:
> secnetix Verwaltungsgesellsch. mbH, Handelsregister: Registergericht  
> Mün-
> chen, HRB 125758,  Geschäftsführer: Maik Bachmann, Olaf Erb, Ralf Ge 
> bhart
>
> FreeBSD-Dienstleistungen, -Produkte und mehr:  http://www.secnetix.de/bsd
>
> "C++ is over-complicated nonsense. And Bjorn Shoestrap's book
> a danger to public health. I tried reading it once, I was in
> recovery for months."
>        -- Cliff Sarginson
>