Setting the kernel.panic tunable

Last published : Jun 11, 2026
The topic applies to SF Oracle RAC and SF Sybase CE.
By default, the kernel.panic tunable is set to zero. Therefore the kernel does not restart automatically if a node panics. To ensure that the node restarts automatically after it panics, this tunable must be set to a non-zero value.
To set the kernel.panic tunable
  1. Set the kernel.panic tunable to a desired value in the /etc/sysctl.conf file.
For example, kernel.panic = 10, will assign a value 10 seconds to the kernel.panic tunable. This step makes the change persistent across restarts.
  1. Run the command:
sysctl -w kernel.panic=10
In case of a panic, the node will restart after 10 seconds.