How To Prevent A System Hang By Writing Files To /tmp (Doc ID 2454224.1)

Last updated on NOVEMBER 17, 2022

Applies to:

Goal

The /tmp directory, by default is a mount point for a tmpfs(7FS) file system, which is a memory based file system. This means that when files are written to /tmp, this data is stored in virtual memory.

Writing files to /tmp or any tmpfs file system, will result in an increase usage of virtual memory therefore it will compete with user processes need for memory. Thus potentially writing big files or many small files, could cause performance problems or in some cases can cause the system to become unresponsive as if were running out of memory.

Writing files to /tmp will not result in using disk space on swap unless the system is running low on memory as to cause memory pages associated with tmpfs(7FS) file systems to be reused, therefore the pages are copied out to swap.

Using the size mount option on any tmpfs(7FS) file system, a user administrator can prevent a system hang when writing files to it.

Solution

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