-m, unexpected behavior?

[hakavlad]

  -m PERCENT[,KILL_PERCENT] set available memory minimum to PERCENT of total (default 10 %).
                            earlyoom sends SIGTERM once below PERCENT, then SIGKILL once below
                            KILL_PERCENT (default PERCENT/2).

I do not understand how this option works.

earlyoom -m 22[,20]
earlyoom v1.2-2-gb52cc56
mem total: 5875 MiB, sending SIGTERM at 22 %, SIGKILL at 11 %
swap total: 0 MiB, sending SIGTERM at 10 %, SIGKILL at 5 %
Could not lock memory - continuing anyway: Cannot allocate memory
mem avail: 3697 of 5875 MiB (62 %), swap free: 0 of 0 MiB ( 0 %)
mem avail: 3693 of 5875 MiB (62 %), swap free: 0 of 0 MiB ( 0 %)

Is it normal?

How to set 22% for SIGTERM and 20% for SIGKILL?
Explain this in more detail, please.

Another example:

earlyoom -m 22[,16] -s 18[,28]
earlyoom v1.2-2-gb52cc56
mem total: 5875 MiB, sending SIGTERM at 22 %, SIGKILL at 11 %
swap total: 0 MiB, sending SIGTERM at 18 %, SIGKILL at 9 %
Could not lock memory - continuing anyway: Cannot allocate memory
mem avail: 3659 of 5875 MiB (62 %), swap free: 0 of 0 MiB ( 0 %)

[hakavlad]

earlyoom -M 220[,160] -S 180[,170]
earlyoom v1.2-2-gb52cc56
fatal: -S: sigterm value in '180[,170]' exceeds limit 0
WTF?

[rfjakob]

Remove the "[ ]", for example,

earlyoom -m 22,20
earlyoom v1.1-54-g20e4a01-dirty
mem  total: 7835 MiB, sending SIGTERM at 22 %, SIGKILL at 20 %
swap total:    0 MiB, sending SIGTERM at 10 %, SIGKILL at  5 %

[rfjakob]

The "[ ]" just mean that the value is optional. I will add examples to make that clear

[hakavlad]

Ok, thank you.

What about

earlyoom -M 220000,160000 -S 180000,170000
earlyoom v1.2-2-gb52cc56
fatal: -S: sigterm value in '180000,170000' exceeds limit 0

?

[hakavlad]

earlyoom -S 200000,100000
earlyoom v1.2-2-gb52cc56
fatal: -S: sigterm value in '200000,100000' exceeds limit 0

It is not normal.

[rfjakob]

Strange. How much swap do you have? (output of free -k ?)

[hakavlad]

swap = 0 MiB

[rfjakob]

Well, if you have 0 swap, you cannot set -S to anything above zero.

[hakavlad]

with swap works normal

earlyoom -S 200000,100000
earlyoom v1.2-2-gb52cc56
mem total: 5875 MiB, sending SIGTERM at 10 %, SIGKILL at 5 %
swap total: 5875 MiB, sending SIGTERM at 3 %, SIGKILL at 1 %
mem avail: 3621 of 5875 MiB (61 %), swap free: 5875 of 5875 MiB (100 %)
mem avail: 3618 of 5875 MiB (61 %), swap free: 5875 of 5875 MiB (100 %)

[hakavlad]

cannot set -S to anything above zero

Maybe It is not well.

[rfjakob]

Hmm, earlyoom v1.1 had a better message, but it would still exit with an error:

earlyoom -S 1000
earlyoom v1.1-26-g867d0e8-dirty
-S: the value you passed (1000 kiB) is above total swap (0 kiB)

The error message is different in v1.2 because the parsing of the "X,Y" values is more complicated. I'll try to improve it.

[hakavlad]

I can start earlyoom with swap:
earlyoom -M 220000,160000 -S 180000,170000
and all is well. Next, I turn off the swap and all is well again, earlyoom works without swap with options earlyoom -M 220000,160000 -S 180000,170000

But I can not start earlyoom without swap with this options. Why?

Next, If I set earlyoom with -M 220000,160000 -S 180000,170000 In /etc, it will works fine. Next I will disable swap and restart earlyoom: Here the daemon will fall!

[rfjakob]

Hmm, should earlyoom ignore the swap settings when there is zero swap? What do you think?

PS: If you restart with less RAM, the daemon will fail as well

[hakavlad]

should earlyoom ignore the swap settings when there is zero swap?

Only if SwapTotal = 0.
It seems obvious to me that swap settings should only be applied when SwapTotal>0.