On 23/08/2024 19:38, Dale wrote:

Any ideas on how to limit Firefox memory usage?  Wouldn't mind if I
could use it for other programs too.

cgroups? Dunno how they work, but it's something they're supposed to do ...

Cheers,
Wol

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On Fri, Aug 23, 2024 at 07:42:05PM -0500, Dale wrote

I still use openrc.  I'll look around and see what I can find.  Now I
know what to look for.  Thing is, not sure I use cgroups either, unless
it is on by default.   o_O

The bottom half of file /etc/rc.conf is devoted to cgroups settings.
Look for the line...
# LINUX CGROUPS RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

--
There are 2 types of people
1) Those who can extrapolate from incomplete data

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On 24/08/2024 00:03, Matt Jolly wrote:

I use slices on HPC to limit users from monopolising interactive nodes,
and our batch jobs kill anything that exceeds requested memory (hope
that wasn't 100h into a job!). I do this on login with user slices but
the concept is the same.

I used something a bit like that on Pr1mos. I had a batch queue that ran
on maximum priority, if users wanted something done quick. But it had a wall-clock limit of 30 secs. I don't think it got used much, but it was
nice to know it was there so even if the machine was being hammered you
could slip small jobs in quickly.

Cheers,
Wol

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On Sunday, 25 August 2024 16:20:19 BST Dale wrote:

Walter Dnes wrote:

On Fri, Aug 23, 2024 at 07:42:05PM -0500, Dale wrote

I still use openrc. I'll look around and see what I can find. Now I
know what to look for. Thing is, not sure I use cgroups either, unless
it is on by default. o_O

The bottom half of file /etc/rc.conf is devoted to cgroups settings.

Look for the line...
# LINUX CGROUPS RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

I have searched for info on this. I did find the settings in rc.conf.
I see a lot of discussion about running services, like cups, mysql and
such, and controlling them. What I don't see is how to set up a regular program like Firefox or any other program that a user runs directly. I suspect it can be done but I can't find a howto that shows how to do it.

I'll keep digging but if anyone has a link they have ran up on before
and would like to share, it would be nice. It seems what I want to do
is not very common. Thing is, Firefox sometimes goes nuts and when it
does, it is determined to crash my system if I don't catch it. Even if
I had the full 128GBs, it would just take longer to consume it as well.
The best way I see to deal with this, limit its access to memory. It
seems there is a tool to do this, now to figure out how to use it.

Thanks to all for the help.

Dale

:-) :-)

I have not dived into cgroups in any big way. I would think setting up a dekstop application with many complicated & complex userspace dependencies is not a simple task.

Perhaps a way to approach this is by launching firefox as a different user and setting a memory limit for that user.

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On 31/08/2024 19:39, Dale wrote:

I did a lot of searching and almost all of it relates to using cgroups
for services, like mysql or something.  I haven't found anything that explains how to do it for a program started by a user.  It may be doable
but I've yet to find it.

I did a quick search and found this ...

https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/555080/using-cgroup-to-limit-program-memory-as-its-running

reading through it, it appears to tell you (a) how to set up the cgroup,
(b) how to put a running program into a cgroup, and (c) (most
importantly) how to start a program in a cgroup.

So what you'd do is create the cgroup, then edit the firefox and
seamonkey desktop files to use cgexec to start them.

Beyond that tip, you're on your own but it looks promising. I've not
done it, so I don't know ...

Cheers,
Wol

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On 01/09/2024 15:24, Dale wrote:

From that link, it looks like that is done manually.  In other words,
when I start Firefox, I have to add the process to the cgroup by hand. Shouldn't there be a way to do it automatically?  Like add it to the
command that runs the program name in the application menu?

That was that bit about cgexec! I start a whole bunch of programs from
the terminal, including iirc thunderbird and firefox.

Or I start them by clicking on an icon which fires them up for me.

So just read up on cgexec (including where to find it - I've just tried
and it's not on my system), then edit the .desktop behind your icon to
start firefox *from* cgexec.

Then you (presuming you don't start it by typing firefox at the command
line) will just start as normal, the only change being the icon starts
cgexec and uses that to start firefox rather than starting firefox directly.

Cheers,
Wol

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On 01/09/2024 20:36, Dale wrote:

I wonder tho, in one of the replies, it says to create a directory in
/sys.  Don't those get cleared after a reboot?  I'm almost certain /proc does but think /sys does too.  If so, how does that survive reboots?  I
may find more info as I search.

I'll leave you to dig deeper, but let us know how it goes ... :-)

Just about that /sys thing, that might be if you're trying to put an already-running program into a cgroup. If you're using cgexec to start a program, it should do all that for you.

Cheers,
Wol

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On 01/09/2024 22:36, Dale wrote:

https://linux.die.net/man/1/cgexec

I've never seen that looping ... but there are a few sites like that -
all it is is the linux man page. If you do "man cgexec" you should get
the exact same text.

Cheers,
Wol

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