The "HP-UX error 12" is called the errno value, the Unix standard for reporting error conditions.
from /usr/include/sys/errno.h:
define ENOMEM 12 /* Not enough core */
from man 2 errno:
[ENOMEM] Not enough space.
During a system call such as exec(), brk(), fork(), or sbrk(), a program asks for more space than the system is able to supply. This may not be a temporary condition; the maximum space size is a system parameter. The error can also occur if there is not enough swap space during a fork().
Now the hardware has nothing to do with memory managemnent and as I mentioned, you have an unlimited amount of RAM as long as you have lots of swap space. The first step is to temporarily add more swap space using swapon. Because you are using so much swap space already, even a relatively small increase in memory usage may run out of swap space. You are already at 200% RAM usage (2Gb of swap already in use).
To see how badly the system is thrashing due to small RAM, use the vmstat command and look at the po (page out) column. 0-9 = OK, 10-99 = low memory, 100+ means severe memory shortage. There are only three fixes for excessive swapping (which means very slow performance):
1. Reduce the size of the Oracle SGA to perhaps 200-400 megs and accept the slow response time especially for row insertions and temp file sorts,
2. Reduce the number of users on the system by more than 1/2.
3. Add 4Gb of additional RAM to eliminate swapping and provide room for growth.
Bill Hassell, sysadmin
