proc_pid_oom_score(5)

✨ proc_pid_oom_score(5) ✨

okay bestie, so this one lives in the File Formats Manual section, and it's literally all about one lil file that tells you how doomed your process is 💀 let's get into it 🫶

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🎀 NAME 🎀

/proc/pid/oom_score — the OOM-killer score, aka your process's "am I gonna get yeeted" meter 👑

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

💖 /proc/pid/oom_score <span>(since Linux 2.6.11)</span>

So this file?? It displays the current score that the kernel gives to this process, for the purpose of selecting a process for the OOM-killer. That's it, that's the whole vibe 🌈

And the rule is simple, no cap: a higher score means the process is more likely to be selected by the OOM-killer. Low score = safe era. High score = main character about to get written off the show 😭

The basis for this score is the amount of memory used by the process, with increases (+) or decreases (-) for factors including:

• whether the process is privileged (-) 🧚 (so yes, being privileged lowkey helps you here, iconic)

⚠️ bestie, heads up: Before Linux 2.6.36, the following factors were also used in the calculation of oom_score:

• whether the process creates a lot of children using fork(2) (+) 👶👶👶
• whether the process has been running a long time, or has used a lot of CPU time (-) 🕰️
• whether the process has a low nice value (i.e., > 0) (+)
• whether the process is making direct hardware access (-) 🔧

The oom_score also reflects the adjustment specified by the oom_score_adj or oom_adj setting for the process. so yeah, you can nudge it, iykyk ✨

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🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

• proc(5)
• proc_pid_oom_score_adj(5)

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and that's the whole page, bestie!! 💅 this was brought to you by Linux man-pages 6.20, dated 2026-02-08, and let me just say — proc_pid_oom_score(5) ate and left no crumbs 💖🫶✨