The OOM-Killer vs. Python

[Gerson Kurz]

I have a python-based SMTP server (see http://p-nand-q.com/shicks.htm)
running on our server, and in general it has worked flawless (since
about nov 2001). However, in the recent week that dreaded linux OOM
killer twice killed the python process. [The machine has 768mb ram -
call me oldfashioned but that SHOULD be enough for both Linux & Python
to get along, really. OK, its running KDE, and has only 256mb for
swap, but still...]

Anyway, even though I believe that this is more of a fault of the
Linux Kernel VM quality than the script (the system has been running
fine for months and now two kills in one week - that smells fishy to
me) - how CAN I controll the memory usage for pythons GC? Is there a
way to easily find out in python which memory is allocated at runtime,
and by which objects?