Oversized allocations can cause out-of-memory errors or [heavy swapping](https://github.com/getumbrel/umbrel-os/issues/64#issuecomment-663637321), [grinding the system to a halt](https://x.com/murchandamus/status/1964432335849607224).
`LogOversizedDbCache()` now emits a startup warning if the configured `-dbcache` exceeds a cap derived from system RAM, using the same parsing/clamping as cache sizing via CalculateDbCacheBytes(). This isn't meant as a recommended setting, rather a likely upper limit.
Note that we're not modifying the set value, just issuing a warning.
Also note that the 75% calculation is rounded for the last two numbers since we have to divide first before multiplying, otherwise we wouldn't stay inside size_t on 32-bit systems - and this was simpler than casting back and forth.
We could have chosen the remaining free memory for the warning (e.g. warn if free memory is less than 1 GiB), but this is just a heuristic, we assumed that on systems with a lot of memory, other processes are also running, while memory constrained ones run only Core.
If total RAM < 2 GiB, cap is `DEFAULT_DB_CACHE` (`450 MiB`), otherwise it's 75% of total RAM.
The threshold is chosen to be close to values commonly used in [raspiblitz](https://github.com/raspiblitz/raspiblitz/blob/dev/home.admin/_provision.setup.sh#L98-L115) for common setups:
| Total RAM | `dbcache` (MiB) | raspiblitz % | proposed cap (MiB) |
|----------:|----------------:|-------------:|-------------------:|
| 1 GiB | 512 | 50.0% | 450* |
| 2 GiB | 1536 | 75.0% | 1536 |
| 4 GiB | 2560 | 62.5% | 3072 |
| 8 GiB | 4096 | 50.0% | 6144 |
| 16 GiB | 4096 | 25.0% | 12288 |
| 32 GiB | 4096 | 12.5% | 24576 |
[Umbrel issues](https://github.com/getumbrel/umbrel-os/issues/64#issuecomment-663816367) also mention 75% being the upper limit.
Starting `bitcoind` on an 8 GiB rpi4b with a dbcache of 7 GiB:
> ./build/bin/bitcoind -dbcache=7000
warns now as follows:
```
2025-09-07T17:24:29Z [warning] A 7000 MiB dbcache may be too large for a system memory of only 7800 MiB.
2025-09-07T17:24:29Z Cache configuration:
2025-09-07T17:24:29Z * Using 2.0 MiB for block index database
2025-09-07T17:24:29Z * Using 8.0 MiB for chain state database
2025-09-07T17:24:29Z * Using 6990.0 MiB for in-memory UTXO set (plus up to 286.1 MiB of unused mempool space)
```
Besides the [godbolt](https://godbolt.org/z/EPsaE3xTj) reproducers for the new total memory method, we also tested the warnings manually on:
- [x] Apple M4 Max, macOS 15.6.1
- [x] Intel Core i9-9900K, Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS
- [x] Raspberry Pi 4 Model B, Armbian Linux 6.12.22-current-bcm2711
- [x] Intel Xeon x64, Windows 11 Home Version 24H2, OS Build 26100.4351
Co-authored-by: stickies-v <stickies-v@protonmail.com>
Co-authored-by: Hodlinator <172445034+hodlinator@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: w0xlt <woltx@protonmail.com>
Github-Pull: #33333
Rebased-From: 168360f4ae
src/node/
The src/node/ directory contains code that needs to access node state
(state in CChain, CBlockIndex, CCoinsView, CTxMemPool, and similar
classes).
Code in src/node/ is meant to be segregated from code in
src/wallet/ and src/qt/, to ensure wallet and GUI
code changes don't interfere with node operation, to allow wallet and GUI code
to run in separate processes, and to perhaps eventually allow wallet and GUI
code to be maintained in separate source repositories.
As a rule of thumb, code in one of the src/node/,
src/wallet/, or src/qt/ directories should avoid
calling code in the other directories directly, and only invoke it indirectly
through the more limited src/interfaces/ classes.
This directory is at the moment
sparsely populated. Eventually more substantial files like
src/validation.cpp and
src/txmempool.cpp might be moved there.