disabling and enabling oom-kill option

sudhi_naidu · 06-10-2008, 04:09 AM

Hi All,

Could you please let me know how to disable or enable oom-kill in RHEL --

In my system if do cat on /proc/sys/vm/oom-kill will give a result of "0". Not sure if "0" specifies whether oom-kill is disabled or enabled?

Also, if we enable it (change in proc), do we have reload the OS.

And lastly, what is the criteria on which "out of memory" killer chooses which processes to terminate ? ( any info or links )

I could not find exact info on this in google...

Thanks,
Sudheendra

sudhi_naidu · 06-10-2008, 07:34 AM

Hi,

Some more info ... I am running rhel 4 u4 ... kernel 2.6.9-55.3.ELsmp

oom-kill is "out of memory killer" process initiated in redhat linux when memory usage is high.

Thanks,
Sudheendra

sudhi_naidu · 06-12-2008, 02:12 AM

*bump*

Any Ideas?? Anyone ??

Thanks,
Sudheendra

sudhi_naidu · 06-13-2008, 06:35 AM

I think i got it ...

you can do it by

echo 0 > /proc/sys/vm/oom-kill

0 file disabling and 1 for enabling ...

Thanks anyways...

syg00 · 06-13-2008, 07:26 AM

Mmmm - this is a *bad* solution. Regardless of what you think of the concept of the oom_killer. Have a look at this. It is poosible to protect "loved ones", but probably won't help if low memory is the problem.