[Beowulf] Setting memory limits on a compute node

[Brent M. Clements]

Ok here is the problem we are running into.

We have a user who submits a job to a compute node.

The application is gaussian. The parent gaussian process can spawn a few
child processes. It appears that the gaussian application is exhausting
all of the memory in the system essentially stopping the machine from
working. You can still ping the machine but can't ssh. Anyway's I know the
fundementals of why this is happening. My question, is there any way to
limit a user's total addressable space that his processes can use so that
it doesn't kill the node?

What is the best to approach this kinda of issue? We have come up with a
few solutions but each one has it's drawbacks.

Thanks,
Brent