Runaway processes freeze the system

[Yuri]

I am getting this problem again and again: when some process allocates 
too much memory the system to freezes.

My memory size is 24GB, and swap is only 4GB. I know that increasing the 
swap size should reduce the chance of this happening, but it obviously 
can't eliminate the problem.


What is the expected behavior of the system in such situation? To me it 
looks like it is wait-and-see, and this causes this problem.

A better strategy would be to maybe wait for some time, but if when the 
problem persists to kill the largest, the most active, or the offending 
process.


11.1 amd64


Yuri