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Linux errno 12 (ENOMEM) — Out of Memory

Criticalerrno

Overview

Linux errno 12 (ENOMEM) means the system or process has run out of available memory.

Key Details

  • ENOMEM — cannot allocate memory
  • Can trigger the OOM (Out of Memory) killer
  • Process may be killed by kernel to free memory
  • Check /proc/meminfo for memory state

Common Causes

  • Process memory leak consuming all RAM
  • Insufficient physical RAM for workload
  • Memory overcommit settings too aggressive
  • Kernel cannot allocate memory for system operations

Steps

  1. 1Check memory usage: free -h and top
  2. 2Identify memory-hungry processes in top/htop
  3. 3Add swap space: fallocate -l 4G /swapfile
  4. 4Adjust vm.overcommit_memory in /etc/sysctl.conf

Tags

linuxerrnoerrno 12 enomemtroubleshootingfix

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linux-errno-11-eagainLinux errno 11 (EAGAIN) — Resource Temporarily Unavailable
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linux-errno-13-eaccesLinux errno 13 (EACCES) — Permission Denied
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linux-errno-22-einvalLinux errno 22 (EINVAL) — Invalid Argument
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Frequently Asked Questions

Kernel process that kills memory-hungry processes when the system runs critically low on RAM.