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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Linux Kernel panic reboot
By default after a kernel panic, Linux kernel just waits there for a system administrator to hit the restart or powercycle button. This is because of the value set on "kernel.panic" parameter.
[root@linux23 ~]# cat /proc/sys/kernel/panic
0
[root@linux23 ~]# sysctl -a | grep kernel.panic
kernel.panic = 0
[root@linux23 ~]#
To disable this and make the Linux OS reboot after a kernel panic, we have to set an integer N greater than zero to the paramter "kernel.panic", where "N" is the number of seconds to wait before a automatic reboot.
For example , if you set N = 10 , then the system waits for 10 seconds before automatic reboot. To make this permanent, edit /etc/sysctl.conf and set it.
[root@linux23 ~]# echo "10" > /proc/sys/kernel/panic
0
[root@linux23 ~]# grep kernel.panic /etc/sysctl.conf
kernel.panic = 10
[root@linux23 ~]#
This helps in preventing manual intervention after a kernel panic. Setup some kernel dump or netdump to capture the kernel crash debug information.
