Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server hangs with OOM_KILLER messages in /var/log/messages

Issue

• System hung without console access
• The kernel invoked the oom-killer function, and it killed a random process on the system
• Messages are printed in log files, such as /var/log/messages, which include the process that invoked oom-killer and a call trace of the oom-killer. For example:

kernel: httpd invoked oom-killer: gfp_mask=0x201d2, order=0, oomkilladj=0
kernel: 
kernel: Call Trace:
[<ffffffff800c3a6a>] out_of_memory+0x8e/0x2f5
[<ffffffff8000f2eb>] __alloc_pages+0x245/0x2ce
[<ffffffff80012a62>] __do_page_cache_readahead+0x95/0x1d9
[<ffffffff80063a04>] __wait_on_bit_lock+0x5b/0x66
[<ffffffff88147d4d>] :dm_mod:dm_any_congested+0x38/0x3f
[<ffffffff80013401>] filemap_nopage+0x148/0x322
[<ffffffff80008863>] __handle_mm_fault+0x1f8/0xe5c
[<ffffffff80066b9a>] do_page_fault+0x4cb/0x830
[<ffffffff80063097>] thread_return+0x62/0xfe
[<ffffffff8005dde9>] error_exit+0x0/0x84