kernel_oom []

This is an old revision of the document!

OOM killer is invoked by the kernel when the system runs out of memory

File	Description
oom_adj	Since Linux Kernel 2.6.36 this file has been deprecated. The new file is oom_score_adj
oom_score_adj	This file can be used to adjust the 'badness' which is used to select a process to kill in out-of-memory conditions 0 (never kill) - 1000 (always kill)
oom_score	This displays the current score that the kernel has given to a process. The process score can increase or decrease depending on the following factors: - whether the process creates a lot of children using fork(2) (+); - whether the process has a low nice value (i.e., > 0) (+); - whether the process has been running a long time, or has used a lot of CPU time (-); - whether the process is privileged (-); - whether the process is making direct hardware access (-)

Highest value in the file is killed first.
New process inherits its parents oom value.