[Date Prev][Date Next] [Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Re: out of RAM.



Dan Brosemer <odin@linuxfreak.com> writes:

> I have a machine which I don't have access to the console of, which
> has run almost completely out of RAM:

> Due (entierly my fault) to a runaway perl script which
> (unfortunately) runs as root.

> I have an open SSH connection to this machine running bash as a
> normal user.  su fails for lack of RAM:
> odin@skirnir:[~]$ su
> Password:
> bash: xmalloc: cannot allocate 2048 bytes (0 bytes allocated)
  ^^^^

Hmmm.... It seems that not _su_ fails, but _bash_ (the one which su
tries to execute, I guess) fails. Perhaps you can still execute small
programs?  Does something like 'su -c "kill <pid of the evil
process>"' work?

        hth,
	moritz
-- 
Moritz Schulte <moritz@chaosdorf.de> http://www.chaosdorf.de/moritz
Debian/GNU supporter - http://www.debian.org/ http://www.gnu.org/
GPG fingerprint = 3A14 3923 15BE FD57 FC06  B501 0841 2D7B 6F98 4199



Reply to: