CHOOM(1) User Commands CHOOM(1)
NAME
choom - display and adjust OOM-killer score.
choom -p PID
choom -p PID -n number
choom -n number [--] command [argument ...]
DESCRIPTION
The choom command displays and adjusts Out-Of-Memory killer score
setting.
OPTIONS
-p, --pid pid
Specifies process ID.
-n, --adjust value
Specify the adjust score value.
-h, --help
Display help text and exit.
-V, --version
Display version and exit.
NOTES
Linux kernel uses the badness heuristic to select which process gets
killed in out of memory conditions.
The badness heuristic assigns a value to each candidate task ranging
from 0 (never kill) to 1000 (always kill) to determine which process is
targeted. The units are roughly a proportion along that range of allowed
memory the process may allocate from based on an estimation of its
current memory and swap use. For example, if a task is using all allowed
memory, its badness score will be 1000. If it is using half of its
allowed memory, its score will be 500.
There is an additional factor included in the badness score: the current
memory and swap usage is discounted by 3% for root processes.
The amount of "allowed" memory depends on the context in which the oom
killer was called. If it is due to the memory assigned to the allocating
task’s cpuset being exhausted, the allowed memory represents the set of
mems assigned to that cpuset. If it is due to a mempolicy’s node(s)
being exhausted, the allowed memory represents the set of mempolicy
nodes. If it is due to a memory limit (or swap limit) being reached, the
allowed memory is that configured limit. Finally, if it is due to the
entire system being out of memory, the allowed memory represents all
allocatable resources.
The adjust score value is added to the badness score before it is used
to determine which task to kill. Acceptable values range from -1000 to
+1000. This allows userspace to polarize the preference for oom killing
either by always preferring a certain task or completely disabling it.
The lowest possible value, -1000, is equivalent to disabling oom killing
entirely for that task since it will always report a badness score of 0.
Setting an adjust score value of +500, for example, is roughly
equivalent to allowing the remainder of tasks sharing the same system,
cpuset, mempolicy, or memory controller resources to use at least 50%
more memory. A value of -500, on the other hand, would be roughly
equivalent to discounting 50% of the task’s allowed memory from being
considered as scoring against the task.
AUTHORS
Karel Zak <kzak@redhat.com>
SEE ALSO
proc(5)
REPORTING BUGS
For bug reports, use the issue tracker
<https://github.com/util-linux/util-linux/issues>.
AVAILABILITY
The choom command is part of the util-linux package which can be
downloaded from Linux Kernel Archive
<https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/>.
util-linux 2.41.5 2026-06-16 CHOOM(1)
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