sysctl vm.overcommit_memory=2. However, programs for *nix-based systems usually expect overcommit to be on, for example, to support fork(). This is a stark contrast with Windows NT model, where an allocation will fail if it doesn't fit in the remaining memory+swap.

People disable memory overcommit, expecting to fix OOMs, and then they get surprised when their programs start failing mallocs while there are still tons of discardable page cache in the system.

https://unix.stackexchange.com/q/797835/1027 https://unix.stackexchange.com/q/797841/1027