Kernel memory breakdown oom-killer

[astbisriberhus]

Hi

I need help localizing the problem to a seemingly random complete system breakdown. To the user it is like one process after an other fails. In the end the entire system doesn't answer.

If i read the log correctly som processes are killed due to lack of memory. My question is how and why?

System: Opensuse 11.1.

I have pasted the last two minutes of the /var/log/messages regarding kernel messages.
pastebin - collaborative debugging tool

I am greatful for any help.

[microchip8]

oom-killer is only invoked when the system runs out of allocatable memory thus the kernel invokes it to kill processes in order to free up resources so the system (and other programs) can run. It seems Apache is doing something wrong (or maybe even a module) and thus is forced to be killed.

[astbisriberhus]

Tanks for the reply. Ok. I have also noticed that sshd is invoking oom-killer. Furthermore i forgot to mention that the system is running on a Vmware ESXi server. The server was running fine for half a year now. But suddenly i starts breaking.

For now i stopped apache to be sure it isn't it. The servers primary funktion is LTSP, so no problem removing apache.