Re: OOM killer.

[Helge Hafting <helgehaf@aitel.hist.no>]

Andrey Nekrasov wrote:
> 
> Help.
> 
> Is it possible to disable VM-killer completely?
Obviously not - it triggers only when there isn't
enough memory to continue.  The alternative to a
OOM killer routine is either a kernel that locks up
effectively killing everything, or a kernel that
allocates all memory early requiring a _lot_ more
memory to run at all.  (If you had that memory
you wouldn't run out in the first place.)
> 
> Or make it not kill some critical tools. I want, for example, that
> in any situation sshd/nfsd/cron remained alive.

The trivial fix is to start sshd/nfsd/cron from /etc/inittab,
similiar to how getty usually starts.  They may still get
killed, but init will restart them asap.

Adding a lot of swap is also a good idea - the machine will
merely slow down instead of killing something.  

Helge Hafting