Limiting the memory usage of a program in Linux

Question

I'm new to Linux and Terminal (or whatever kind of command prompt it uses), and I want to control the amount of RAM a process can use. I already looked for hours to find an easy-t-use guide. I have a few requirements for limiting it:

Multiple instances of the program will be running, but I only want to limit some of the instances.
I do not want the process to crash once it exceeds the limit. I want it to use HDD page swap.
The program will run under WINE, and is a .exe.

So can somebody please help with the command to limit the RAM usage on a process in Linux?

I have already looked at that source many times, and it is not useful since it does not give the full code after "$pdftoppm". — hammereditor
– hammereditor, Commented Jul 4, 2013 at 11:20

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 12:00:27Z

2

The fact that you’re using Wine makes no difference in this particular context, which leaves requirements 1 and 2. Requirement 2 –

I do not want the process to crash once it exceeds the limit. I want it to use HDD page swap.

– is known as limiting the resident set size or rss of the process, and it’s actually rather nontrivial to do on Linux, as is demonstrated by a question asked in 2010. You’ll need to set up Linux control groups (cgroups). Fortunately, Justin L.’s answer gives a brief rundown on how to do so. Note that

instead of jlebar, you should use your own Unix user name, and
instead of your/program, you should use wine /path/to/Windows/program.exe.

Using cgroups will also satisfy your other requirements – you can start as many instances of the program as you wish, but only those which you start with cgexec -g memory:limited will be limited.

edited May 23, 2017 at 12:00

CommunityBot

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answered Oct 31, 2013 at 22:23

Benjamin Barenblat

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