Ubuntu 22.04 LTS – OOM killer terminates critical services under load – Fix & Prevention

📖 ~1 min read

Table of contents

1. Symptom & Impact
2. Environment & Reproduction
3. Root Cause Analysis
4. Quick Triage
5. Step-by-Step Diagnosis
6. Solution – Primary Fix
7. Solution – Alternative Approaches
8. Verification & Acceptance Criteria
9. Rollback Plan
10. Prevention & Hardening
11. Related Errors & Cross-Refs
12. References & Further Reading

Symptom & Impact

Critical process exits unexpectedly due to OOM killer selection.

Environment & Reproduction

Ubuntu 22.04 host with sustained memory pressure and insufficient swap.

Root Cause Analysis

Aggregate memory consumption exceeds available RAM plus swap capacity.

Quick Triage

Review dmesg for OOM events and inspect memory usage with free -h and top.

Step-by-Step Diagnosis

Identify leaking process or runaway workload and confirm cgroup or systemd limit settings.

Solution – Primary Fix

Tune service memory limits, add swap where appropriate, and optimize workload concurrency.

Solution – Alternative Approaches

Scale vertically or horizontally and isolate noisy workloads in separate nodes.

Verification & Acceptance Criteria

No new OOM kill logs under representative load test window.

Rollback Plan

Revert recent memory limit changes if they starve legitimate workload throughput.

Prevention & Hardening

Implement memory monitoring and alerts before saturation thresholds.

Related Errors & Cross-Refs

Systemd service restarts and kernel pressure stall warnings are common companions.

Related tutorial: View the step-by-step tutorial for Ubuntu 22.04 LTS.

View all Ubuntu 22.04 LTS tutorials on the Tutorials Hub →

Browse all common problems & solutions on the Tutorials Hub.

References & Further Reading

Ubuntu 22.04 memory management, swap tuning, and OOM diagnostics references.