Bug 13202

I recommend using login accounting, that is what it is there for :)..
/etc/login.conf.. How much swap was there? What was MAXUSERS set to?
normally, for an ls, if you have maxusers at default, i'm surprised you
didnt run out of processes before it crashed, must have low swap? Anyway,
main point, USE LOGIN ACCOUNTING :)



------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jason DiCioccio                              | geniusj@free-bsd.org
FreeBSD - The Power to Serve                 | http://www.freebsd.org
Tel: (303) 984-5311                          | http://www.nailed.com
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On Tue, 17 Aug 1999 slawson@alphamicro.com wrote:

> 
> >Number:         13202
> >Category:       misc
> >Synopsis:       Easy for user to crash system
> >Confidential:   no
> >Severity:       serious
> >Priority:       medium
> >Responsible:    freebsd-bugs
> >State:          open
> >Quarter:        
> >Keywords:       
> >Date-Required:
> >Class:          sw-bug
> >Submitter-Id:   current-users
> >Arrival-Date:   Tue Aug 17 09:40:00 PDT 1999
> >Closed-Date:
> >Last-Modified:
> >Originator:     Steven Lawson
> >Release:        2.2.8
> >Organization:
> Alpha Microsystems
> >Environment:
> >Description:
> In an attempt to lure one of our hardware guys from Linux to FreeBSD,
> we installed 2.2.8 on a system.  A "make it do something" test he
> runs on Linux, and on the SCO Openserver boxes on the production
> floor, killed FreeBSD very quickly.  It was quite embarrasing, being
> so simple.  It's just a looping batch file which appears to rapidly
> eat all of swap, while he insists the other boxes handle it fine.
> >How-To-Repeat:
> Create a file called "looptest", which contains:
>    ls -l
>    ./looptest
> 
> Make it executable and run it.  System performance drops
> and before long it's griping about lack of swap and attempts
> to log into the other virtual consoles fail.
> >Fix:
> 
> 
> >Release-Note:
> >Audit-Trail:
> >Unformatted:
> 
> 
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>

Comment 2 Dag-Erling Smørgrav 1999-09-22 00:33:45 UTC

State Changed
From-To: open->closed

Not a bug. 

slawson@alphamicro.com writes:
> Create a file called "looptest", which contains:
>    ls -l
>    ./looptest

This is a fork bomb (linear, not quadratic, but still a fork bomb).
Use resource limits to prevent it from eating up all system resources
(see login.conf(5)). And please use a more recent version than 2.2.8.

DES
-- 
Dag-Erling Smorgrav - des@flood.ping.uio.no