Re: How a normal user can crash any linux system (fwd)

From: Alfred Perlstein (bright@wintelcom.net)
Date: Wed Mar 22 2000 - 17:26:23 EST


* Jim Bryant <jbryant@ppp-207-193-186-239.kscymo.swbell.net> [000322 14:19] wrote:
> In reply:
> > This is cross-posted to both linux-kernel and freebsd-hackers, please
> > set your replies properly.
> >
> > > I found the following by accident playing with PVM. If you start the
> > > 'gexample' from the examples directory with dimension=10000 and no of
> > > tasks=32 on one machine, it becomes almost immediately completely un-
> > > usable and begins with heavy swapping. Considering how much memory
> > > would be necessary for this computation before starting it would have
> > > avoided the trouble.
>
> well, there are other ways to make a system slow to a crawl....
>
> a good preventative measure is to never give shell accounts unless
> everyone is accountable.

True.

>
> #!/bin/csh
> /usr/games/primes 1 4294967295 >&/dev/null&

....

> /usr/games/primes 1 4294967295 >&/dev/null&
> # etc, ...
> #
> # [get the idea?]

why are you 'scripting' in csh? eww.

No i don't get the idea, login.conf in FreeBSD is able to limit a user
to a maximum amount of processes, I think even cputime limitations work
but I haven't tried them.

Yes, and one shouldn't give accounts out to irresponcible/thoughtless
people. 'rmuser' is your friend.

-- 
-Alfred Perlstein - [bright@wintelcom.net|alfred@freebsd.org]

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