Score:1

Unable to log in due to Out of memory error

cn flag
Max

On our Ubuntu (20.04) server, somebody launched a set of parallelized python scripts that used up a lot of RAM. The screen displays a series of:

Out of memory: killed process <####> (python)

and I'm unable to access the login prompt. I am still able to log into the server remotely, however.

I've gone in and killed some of my processes to free up some space, but I'm reluctant to do a reboot and kill processes that some of my colleagues are running. Is there some way that I can restore the system login screen without doing a reboot?

I should have enough memory available now, i.e.

free -m
          total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:         257626       12839      242516           5        2269      242670
Swap:         32734        3592       29142

Any suggestions on what options other than reboot are available to me would be appreciated.

in flag
What’s the difference between killing some and killing all of the processes? Someone is running something that is seriously detrimental to the health of your server. Kill it with fire. Reboot. If needs be, ban the person who ran the Python script. VMs and containers on local machines can be used for processor-intensive tasks.
pasman pasmański avatar
mx flag
What is the differece between log in remotely and locally ? You use the same tools: ps, sudo, kill
mangohost

Post an answer

Most people don’t grasp that asking a lot of questions unlocks learning and improves interpersonal bonding. In Alison’s studies, for example, though people could accurately recall how many questions had been asked in their conversations, they didn’t intuit the link between questions and liking. Across four studies, in which participants were engaged in conversations themselves or read transcripts of others’ conversations, people tended not to realize that question asking would influence—or had influenced—the level of amity between the conversationalists.