If you want the server to get rebooted automatically after kernel hit by a pain error message, try adding panic=N to /etc/sysctl.conf file.
It specify kernel behavior on panic. By default, the kernel will not reboot after a panic, but this option will cause a kernel reboot after N seconds. For example following boot parameter will force to reboot Linux after 10 seconds.
Open /etc/sysctl.conf file
# vi /etc/sysctl.conf
When kernel panic's, reboot after 10 second delay
kernel.panic = 10
Save and close the file. Alternatively, you may want to enable and use magic system request keys (SysRq).
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- Last Updated: Nov/16/2007
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks for this tip. My computer had a kernel panic for the first time a couple of weeks ago and I had no choice but to reboot it manually.
One can also add panic=10 to the kernel command line, it will have exactly the same effect.
Of course, it’s possible to change it later with sysctl, or by writing to /proc:
echo 10 > /proc/sys/kernel/panic