Amazon micro instances is the great start option for small websites. Learn how to contain oom-killer that may make wrong decision.

oom-killer as MySQL vs Apache arbiter

When it comes to competition for memory oom-killer steps in. I run Apache and MySQL on the same box. This you should probably never do, but I thought that on my tiny setup they will get along. That’s not true. It started when first users came in. The system ran quickly out of memory:

Feb  5 03:48:26 app-01 kernel: [3313052.688189] httpd invoked oom-killer: gfp_mask=0x201da, order=0, oom_adj=0, oom_score_adj=0
Feb  5 03:48:26 app-01 kernel: [3313052.688203] httpd cpuset=/ mems_allowed=0
Feb  5 03:48:26 app-01 kernel: [3313052.688208] Pid: 21297, comm: httpd Not tainted 3.4.73-64.112.amzn1.x86_64 #1
Feb  5 03:48:26 app-01 kernel: [3313052.688214] Call Trace:
Feb  5 03:48:26 app-01 kernel: [3313052.688226]  [] dump_header.constprop.6+0x7e/0x1b0
Feb  5 03:48:26 app-01 …