A follow up to Running a JVM in a Container Without Getting Killed

In Java 10 there is improved container integration.
No need to add extra flags, the JVM will use 1/4 of the container memory for heap.

$ docker run -m 1GB openjdk:10 java -XshowSettings:vm \
    -version
VM settings:
    Max. Heap Size (Estimated): 247.50M
    Using VM: OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM

openjdk version "10.0.1" 2018-04-17
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 10.0.1+10-Debian-4)
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 10.0.1+10-Debian-4, mixed mode)

Java 10 obsoletes the -XX:MaxRAM parameter, as the JVM will correctly detect the value.

You can still use the -XX:MaxRAMFraction=1 option to squeeze all the memory from the container.

$ docker run -m 1GB openjdk:10 java -XshowSettings:vm \
    -XX:MaxRAMFraction=1 -version
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM warning: Option MaxRAMFraction was deprecated in version 10.0 and will likely be removed in a future release.
VM settings:
    Max. Heap Size (Estimated): 989.88M
    Using VM: OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM

openjdk version "10.0.1" 2018-04-17
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 10.0.1+10-Debian-4)
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 10.0.1+10-Debian-4, mixed mode)

But it can be risky if your container uses off heap memory, as almost all the container memory is allocated to heap. You would have to either set -XX:MaxRAMFraction=2 and use only 50% of the container memory for heap, or resort to Xmx.

No pun intended

The JDK 8u131 has backported a nice feature in JDK 9, which is the ability of the JVM to detect how much memory is available when running inside a Docker container.

I have talked multiple times about the problems running a JVM inside a container, how it will default in most cases to a max heap of 1/4 of the host memory, not the container.

For example in my machine

$ docker run -m 100MB openjdk:8u121 java -XshowSettings:vm -version
VM settings:
    Max. Heap Size (Estimated): 444.50M
    Ergonomics Machine Class: server
    Using VM: OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM

Wait, WAT? I set a container memory of 100MB and my JVM sets a max heap of 444M ? It is very likely that it is going to cause the Kernel to kill my JVM at some point.

Let’s try the JDK 8u131 with the experimental option -XX:+UseCGroupMemoryLimitForHeap

$ docker run -m 100MB openjdk:8u131 java \
  -XX:+UnlockExperimentalVMOptions \
  -XX:+UseCGroupMemoryLimitForHeap \
  -XshowSettings:vm -version
VM settings:
    Max. Heap Size (Estimated): 44.50M
    Ergonomics Machine Class: server
    Using VM: OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM

Ok this makes more sense, the JVM was able to detect the container has only 100MB and set the max heap to 44M.

Let’s try in a bigger container

$ docker run -m 1GB openjdk:8u131 java \
  -XX:+UnlockExperimentalVMOptions \
  -XX:+UseCGroupMemoryLimitForHeap \
  -XshowSettings:vm -version
VM settings:
    Max. Heap Size (Estimated): 228.00M
    Ergonomics Machine Class: server
    Using VM: OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM

Mmm, now the container has 1GB but JVM is only using 228M as max heap. Can we optimize this even more, given that nothing else other than the JVM is running in the container? Yes we can!

$ docker run -m 1GB openjdk:8u131 java \
  -XX:+UnlockExperimentalVMOptions \
  -XX:+UseCGroupMemoryLimitForHeap \
  -XX:MaxRAMFraction=1 -XshowSettings:vm -version
VM settings:
    Max. Heap Size (Estimated): 910.50M
    Ergonomics Machine Class: server
    Using VM: OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM

Using -XX:MaxRAMFraction we are telling the JVM to use available memory/MaxRAMFraction as max heap. Using -XX:MaxRAMFraction=1 we are using almost all the available memory as max heap.

UPDATE: follow up for Java 10+ at Running a JVM in a Container Without Getting Killed II