Low memory is not OOM

[hakavlad]

Out of memory (OOM) is an often undesired state of computer operation where no additional memory can be allocated for use by programs or the operating system. Such a system will be unable to load any additional programs, and since many programs may load additional data into memory during execution, these will cease to function correctly. This usually occurs because all available memory, including disk swap space, has been allocated.

In normal operation, earlyoom should not occur at all OOM, since preventing OOM is the main task of earlyoom, not a reaction to OOM that has already occurred.

What about replace "Out of memory!" in earlyoom stdout with "Preventing OOM!"?

[rfjakob]

Not sure about this.

What earlyoom does is to declare that the system is "out of memory" sooner than the kernel oom killer would to. And what "out of memory" means can be set by the user.

[hakavlad]

And what "out of memory" means can be set by the user.

Need citation. Earlyoom sets follow:

  -m PERCENT       set available memory minimum to PERCENT of total (default 10 %)
  -s PERCENT       set free swap minimum to PERCENT of total (default 10 %)

This is not "out of memory" levels. "Out of memory" isn't mentioned at all.

[rfjakob]

It's right in the title

The Early OOM Daemon

[hakavlad]

Earlyoom acts early OOM, but 10% MemAvailable is not OOM.

[hakavlad]

very good