Ubuntu fork bomb handling. Fork: Resource temporarily unavailable. Is it not a threat any more?

Question

I've ran across a discussion of Linux security. A fork bomb was suggested as a way to freeze OS. It supposed to prevent other processes from running. I've tried this command (DO NOT TRY IT UNLESS YOU ARE READY FOR FREEZES!) “:(){ :|: & };:”

But all I got is Fork: Resource temporarily unavailable.

Task manager started without a problem, so did the browser. Seems like Ubuntu is reaching the cgroup limit.

Does it mean that fork bomb is not a threat since some version of Ubuntu OR it needs a lot of components + root access OR just a couple of instructions might make it dangerous again?

Answer 1

Yes and no.

Todays computers have a lot more memory and processing powers. That means there's a bigger chance that you'll run into the limits before exhausting RAM today than ten years ago.

In addition, you can, if you want to protect against this, set up limits on how many processes a user can run.

All in all this is most relevant on a multi user system. On a single user desktop, a fork bomb is not a disaster anyway. Worst case? Reboot.