Where does an external process run from Runtime.getRuntime().exec(command) get its memory from?

Question

I have a Java application running under JBoss AS 7 that is used to call a fairly complicated bash script using Runtime.getRuntime().exec(command). The bash script is failing because cvs is reporting that it is running out of memory (the error was "E342: Out of memory!" to be exact).

So should I be increasing the amount of memory available to JBoss AS (with JAVA_OPTS="-Xms256m -Xmx2048m" or something similar), or does this indicate that the OS itself has run out of memory?

Answer 1

The operating system is running out of memory. Increasing JBoss's heap size can only make things worse.

You should be looking at things like:

• Adding more RAM.
• Increasing the amount of swap disk space.
• Cutting down on the other applications running.