Operating systems sometimes behave like airlines. Since the airlines know that a certain percentage of the passengers won't show up for their flight, they overbook the flights. As anyone who has been to an airport in the last 10 years knows, they usually get it wrong and have to bribe some of us to get on the next flight. If the next flight is the next morning, we get to stay in a nice hotel and have a great meal, courtesy of the airline.
That's going to be my lodging strategy if I'm ever homeless.
Linux kernel does something similar. It allocates memory to its processes ahead of time. Since it knows that most of the processes won't use all the memory allocated to them, it over-commits. In other words, it allocates a sum total of memory that is more than it actually has. Once in a while too many processes claim the memory that the kernel promised them at the same time. When that happens, the Linux kernel resorts to an option that the airlines wish they had: it kills off processes one at a time. In fact, it actually has a name for this function: the out-of-memory killer.
Robert Chase explains.
How to Configure the Out of Memory Killer
Robert Chase describes how to examine your syslog and how to use the vmstat command for clues about which processes were killed, and why. He then shows you how to configure the OOM killer to behave the way you prefer. For instance, you can make certain processes less likely to be killed than others. Or more. Or you can instruct the kernel to reboot instead of killing processes.
More Oracle Linux Resources
- All articles by Robert Chase
- Other technical articles for Linux developers
- All Linux-related resources on OTN
- Rick
Follow me on:
Blog | Facebook | Twitter | YouTube
(psst! and don't forget to follow the Great Peruvian Novel!)