Re: Holes in the Java sandbox

Richard M. Smith (rms@pharlap.com)
Sat, 14 Feb 1998 14:11:10 -0500

Date: Sat, 14 Feb 1998 14:11:10 -0500
To: Li Gong <gong@games.eng.sun.com>
From: "Richard M. Smith" <rms@pharlap.com>
Subject: Re: Holes in the Java sandbox
In-Reply-To: <199802121937.LAA26762@games.eng.sun.com>

Li,

Windows 95 becomes very unstable when it runs low
on resources like virtual memory and threads. In the
last couple of months I have diagnose 4 separate
system crashes for different people which all
turned out to be Windows 95 running out of virtual
memory due to drive C: being full.

So I think that it is important that a JVM which allows
guest applets to be run on a Windows system
needs to enforce some limits of resource allocation.
These limits can be stored in the registry or some
other convenient location for Java.

Some known problems areas in Windows 95 are:

- Virtual memory
- Win32 Threads
- Open Windows

See ya,
Richard

At 11:37 AM 2/12/98 -0800, Li Gong wrote:
>
>
>OK, I tried again using appletviewer in JDK 1.2, and the applet runs
>well, and the animation uses a lot of CPU, but I could stop it with
>the "stop" button. HotJava 1.0.1 also runs well. Neither crushes.
>We do not constrain resource usage currently. We are thinking about
>it. Unsure why NS 4.04 does not run the applet.
>
>Cheers.
>
>Li
>--
>
>Richard M. Smith writes:
>> >The page you described did nothing when I viewed it with Netscape
>> >4.04.
>>
>> Not sure what to say. I thought that Java was suppose to be
>> "write once, run anywhere". :)
>>
>> With Netscape 4.02 and the IE4 JVM's, the applet seems
>> to allocate a lot of memory (100 to 200 megabytes) and create
>> alot of threads (~1000 to 1500). Windows 95 then chokes.
>>
>> Someone at PC Magazine also got it to fail with Hot Java.
>> They also got it to crash NT server. Not sure with which JVM.
>>
>> Richard
>>
>>
>