limitmem

#!/bin/sh

# This script uses commands from the cgroup-tools package. The cgroup-tools commands
# access the cgroup filesystem directly which is against the (new-ish) kernel's
# requirement that cgroups are managed by a single entity (which usually will be
# systemd). Additionally there is a v2 cgroup api in development which will probably
# replace the existing api at some point. So expect this script to break in the future.
# The correct way forward would be to use systemd's apis to create the cgroups, but
# afaik systemd currently (feb 2018) only exposes dbus apis for which there are no
# command line tools yet, and I didn't feel like writing those.

# https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/44985/limit-memory-usage-for-a-single-linux-process/279175#279175

# strict mode: error if commands fail or if unset variables are used
set -eu

if [ "$#" -lt 2 ]
then
    echo Usage: `basename $0` "<limit> <command>..."
    echo or: `basename $0` "<memlimit> -s <swaplimit> <command>..."
    exit 1
fi

cgname="limitmem_$$"

# parse command line args and find limits

limit="$1"
swaplimit="$limit"
shift

if [ "$1" = "-s" ]
then
    shift
    swaplimit="$1"
    shift
fi

if [ "$1" = -- ]
then
    shift
fi

if [ "$limit" = "$swaplimit" ]
then
    memsw=0
    echo "limiting memory to $limit (cgroup $cgname) for command $@" >&2
else
    memsw=1
    echo "limiting memory to $limit and total virtual memory to $swaplimit (cgroup $cgname) for command $@" >&2
fi

# create cgroup
sudo cgcreate -g "memory:$cgname"
sudo cgset -r memory.limit_in_bytes="$limit" "$cgname"
bytes_limit=`cgget -g "memory:$cgname" | grep memory.limit_in_bytes | cut -d\  -f2`

# try also limiting swap usage, but this fails if the system has no swap
# if sudo cgset -r memory.memsw.limit_in_bytes="$swaplimit" "$cgname"
# then
#     bytes_swap_limit=`cgget -g "memory:$cgname" | grep memory.memsw.limit_in_bytes | cut -d\  -f2`
# else
#     echo "failed to limit swap"
#     memsw=0
# fi

# create a waiting sudo'd process that will delete the cgroup once we're done. This
# prevents the user needing to enter their password to sudo again after the main
# command exists, which may take longer than sudo's timeout.
tmpdir=${XDG_RUNTIME_DIR:-$TMPDIR}
tmpdir=${tmpdir:-/tmp}
fifo="$tmpdir/limitmem_$$_cgroup_closer"
mkfifo --mode=u=rw,go= "$fifo"
sudo -b sh -c "head -c1 '$fifo' >/dev/null ; cgdelete -g 'memory:$cgname'"

# spawn subshell to run in the cgroup. If the command fails we still want to remove the cgroup so unset '-e'.
set +e
(
set -e
# move subshell into cgroup
sudo cgclassify -g "memory:$cgname" --sticky `sh -c 'echo $PPID'`  # $$ returns the main shell's pid, not this subshell's.
exec "$@"
)

# grab exit code 
exitcode=$?

set -e

# show memory usage summary

peak_mem=`cgget -g "memory:$cgname" | grep memory.max_usage_in_bytes | cut -d\  -f2`
failcount=`cgget -g "memory:$cgname" | grep memory.failcnt | cut -d\  -f2`
percent=`expr "$peak_mem" / \( "$bytes_limit" / 100 \)`

echo "peak memory used: $peak_mem ($percent%); exceeded limit $failcount times" >&2

if [ "$memsw" = 1 ]
then
    peak_swap=`cgget -g "memory:$cgname" | grep memory.memsw.max_usage_in_bytes | cut -d\  -f2`
    swap_failcount=`cgget -g "memory:$cgname" |grep memory.memsw.failcnt | cut -d\  -f2`
    swap_percent=`expr "$peak_swap" / \( "$bytes_swap_limit" / 100 \)`

    echo "peak virtual memory used: $peak_swap ($swap_percent%); exceeded limit $swap_failcount times" >&2
fi

# remove cgroup by sending a byte through the pipe
echo 1 > "$fifo"
rm "$fifo"