kill weblogic on OutOfMemory error

When a weblogic server is hit by an OutOfMemory condition, it often agonizes for a while before finally collapsing. This is not very healthy for the poor beast, and for humanitarian reasons you might want to end its suffering sooner.

The first approach could be to use the

<overload-protection>
   <panic-action>system-exit</panic-action>
</overload-protection>

OnOutOfMemoryError is a little-know flag documented here http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/articles/java/vmoptions-jsp-140102.html

Try starting the JVM with -XX:OnOutOfMemoryError="kill -9 %p" or -XX:OnOutOfMemoryError='kill -9 %p' and see if this does the job.

This is my test (source code copied from Crunchify site):



cat GenerateOOM.java

public class GenerateOOM {
 
 
        public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
                GenerateOOM memoryTest = new GenerateOOM();
                memoryTest.generateOOM();
        }
 
        public void generateOOM() throws Exception {
                int iteratorValue = 20;
                System.out.println("\n=================> OOM test started..\n");
                for (int outerIterator = 1; outerIterator < 20; outerIterator++) {
                        System.out.println("Iteration " + outerIterator + " Free Mem: " + Runtime.getRuntime().freeMemory());
                        int loop1 = 2;
                        int[] memoryFillIntVar = new int[iteratorValue];
                        // feel memoryFillIntVar array in loop..
                        do {
                                memoryFillIntVar[loop1] = 0;
                                loop1--;
                        } while (loop1 > 0);
                        iteratorValue = iteratorValue * 5;
                        System.out.println("\nRequired Memory for next loop: " + iteratorValue);
                        Thread.sleep(1000);
                }
        }
 
}

This is the run:

java -XX:OnOutOfMemoryError="kill -9 %p" GenerateOOM 

=================> OOM test started..

Iteration 1 Free Mem: 244998456

Required Memory for next loop: 100
Iteration 2 Free Mem: 244998456

Required Memory for next loop: 500
Iteration 3 Free Mem: 244998456

Required Memory for next loop: 2500
Iteration 4 Free Mem: 244998456

Required Memory for next loop: 12500
Iteration 5 Free Mem: 244998456

Required Memory for next loop: 62500
Iteration 6 Free Mem: 244998456

Required Memory for next loop: 312500
Iteration 7 Free Mem: 244998456

Required Memory for next loop: 1562500
Iteration 8 Free Mem: 243748440

Required Memory for next loop: 7812500
Iteration 9 Free Mem: 237498424

Required Memory for next loop: 39062500
Iteration 10 Free Mem: 206248408

Required Memory for next loop: 195312500
Iteration 11 Free Mem: 49998392

Required Memory for next loop: 976562500
Iteration 12 Free Mem: 50003032
#
# java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: Java heap space
# -XX:OnOutOfMemoryError="kill -9 %p"
#   Executing /bin/sh -c "kill -9 3860"...
Killed

I have also tested that if OnOutOfMemoryError and HeapDumpOnOutOfMemoryError are used together, the HeapDumpOnOutOfMemoryError is executed first, then the server is killed.

java -XX:OnOutOfMemoryError="kill -9 %p" -XX:+HeapDumpOnOutOfMemoryError GenerateOOM

PS I have tested using single quotes ( java -XX:OnOutOfMemoryError='kill -9 %p' ) and it works on Linux )