Yes, it's very hard to track down the cause of the memory problem in this situation. Even just the output of a ps before killing took place would be very helpful.
When memory + swap is all used it's very difficult to log in and run these sorts of commands.

On Mon, 2005-11-28 at 21:09 +0800, John Summerfied wrote:
Naoki wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I've just had oom killer toast a process.  From the messages can I tell
> how much memory (real/swap) this process was using before it was
> blasted?

I'm not sure it's useful to know that:-( In my experience (which 
includes 2.6 kernels that are supposed to do this better) the killed 
process is generally an innocent bystander.


......................................................................................
Mark "Naoki" Rogers /VP - Systems Engineering
Systems
ValueCommerce Co., Ltd.

Tokyo Bldg 4F 3-32-7 Hongo Bunkyo-ku Tokyo 113-0033 Japan
Tel. +81.3.3817.8995   Fax. +81.3.3812.4051
mailto:naoki@valuecommerce.co.jp
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