Weird console problem in linux, usually right before OOM

Posted by Kevin Quinn on Server Fault See other posts from Server Fault or by Kevin Quinn
Published on 2011-06-23T05:18:33Z Indexed on 2011/06/23 8:23 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 277

Filed under:

linux

|

oom

So I've noticed this happen more than once.

If I remember correctly, this usually happens right before OOM, and/or kernel panic that if you type into a tty and then try to backspace it, the same characters are printed back in reverse.

This has been merely an interesting oddity to me in the past, but it happened again recently, and I've gotten more curious about what's actually causing that. (Is it sending the characters back to STD_OUT or something?)

Does anyone have any idea? I have a feeling the answer will be interesting.

Just so I'm clear, if you typed hello world, then tried to backspace it:

hello world..dlrow olleh

© Server Fault or respective owner

Related posts about linux

apt-get install and update fail

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
I've got a problem with apt-get update and apt-get install ... commands . every time update or installing fails and errors are : Get:1 http://dl.google.com stable Release.gpg [198B] Ign http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/ stable/main Translation-en_US Get:2 http://dl… >>> More
kernel module compiling error

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
sh@ubuntu:/home/ccpp/helloworld$ make gcc-4.6 -O2 -DMODULE -D_KERNEL_ -W -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -Wmissing-prototypes -isystem /lib/modules/`uname -r`/build/include -c -o hello-1.o hello-1.c hello-1.c:4:0: warning: "MODULE" redefined [enabled by default] <command-line>:0:0: note: this is… >>> More
Build-Essentials installation failing

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
I am having trouble accessing the several critical header files that show to be a part of the build process. The "Ubuntu Software Center" shows "Build Essentials" as installed: Next I did the following two commands, which did not improve the problem: ~$ sudo apt-get install build-essential [sudo]… >>> More
Updating Debian kernel

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I'm trying to update my Debian machine to 2.6.32-46 (which is the new stable). However, after doing apt-get update my apt-cache search linux-image shows me: linux-headers-2.6.32-5-486 - Header files for Linux 2.6.32-5-486 linux-headers-2.6.32-5-686-bigmem - Header files for Linux 2.6.32-5-686-bigmem linux-headers-2… >>> More
Serial connection over a single USB cable (Windows to linux, or linux to linux)

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I'm helping out with a project for an embedded device that only has USB and no serial. This device is running Linux. These days, when we need to connect to a serial port on a device we typically use a USB to serial adapter (on something like a phone system or a load balancing device, etc). I would… >>> More

Related posts about oom

OOM-Killer, jboss and kernel panic

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
Hi, We are running RedHat 3.4.6(x32) on VMWareEsx3.5(x64) with 6GB RAM. A few java processes(including jboss) are running in the background. The problem is that the java processes consume lots of memory, and sometimes they are killed by the OOM-killer. When OOM-killer is about to act, the free… >>> More
Forensic Analysis of the OOM-Killer

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
Ubuntu's Out-Of-Memory Killer wreaked havoc on my server, quietly assassinating my applications, sendmail, apache and others. I've managed to learn what the OOM Killer is, and about its "badness" rules. While my machine is small, my applications are even smaller, and typically only half of my physical… >>> More
Virtual dedicated server repetitive draining RAM, OOM constantly

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
My linux (fedora red hat 7) virtual dedicated server has been experiencing OOM multiple times a day for the past several days. I thought the issue was with spamd/spamassassin but after disabling this the errors remains. The highest usage displayed on ps faux --cumulative: USER PID %CPU… >>> More
Turn off the Linux OOM killer by default?

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
The OOM killer on Linux wreaks havoc with various applications every so often, and it appears that not much is really done on the kernel development side to improve this. Would it not be better, as a best practice when setting up a new server, to reverse the default on the memory overcommitting,… >>> More
Virtual dedicated surver repetitive draining RAM, OOM constantly

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
My linux (fedora red hat 7) virtual dedicated server has been experiencing OOM multiple times a day for the past several days. I thought the issue was with spamd/spamassassin but after disabling this the errors remains. The highest usage displayed on ps faux --cumulative: USER PID %CPU… >>> More