Java Runtime.getRuntime().exec() alternatives

Question

I have a collection of webapps that are running under tomcat. Tomcat is configured to have as much as 2 GB of memory using the -Xmx argument.

Many of the webapps ne

Answer 1

I think this is a unix fork() issue, the memory requirement comes from they way fork() works -- it first clones the child process image (at whatever size it currently is) then replaces the parent image with the child image. I know on Solaris there is some way to control this behavior, but I don't know offhand what it is.

Update: This is already explained in From what Linux kernel/libc version is Java Runtime.exec() safe with regards to memory?