alram is a lightweight memory monitoring utility for Linux that warns users when available RAM falls below a configured threshold. It is intended to help prevent situations where severe memory pressure makes a desktop difficult to use or causes applications to become unresponsive.
The program was created with systems that operate without swap in mind. When memory becomes scarce, alram can display a desktop notification so the user can take action before resource exhaustion causes further problems.
It also provides an optional mechanism for terminating selected applications automatically. This functionality is controlled through a user-defined list of processes, allowing less important applications to be targeted when available memory becomes critically low.
This is free and open source software.
Key Features
- Monitors available system memory using information obtained from the Linux /proc/meminfo interface.
- Displays desktop notifications when available RAM falls below a configurable percentage of total system memory.
- Supports configurable polling intervals for determining how frequently memory availability is checked.
- Can optionally terminate processes specified in a user-maintained list when the memory threshold is reached.
- Identifies matching processes by name and sends SIGINT to the selected process, rather than forcibly killing every matching process.
- Uses a configuration file at ~/.config/alram.conf to define memory thresholds, polling frequency and processes eligible for termination.
- Can run within the user’s systemd session using the supplied service unit.
- Suppresses repeated notifications while memory remains below the threshold, resetting the alert when sufficient memory becomes available again.
Website: github.com/gladykov/alram
Support:
Developer: Jakub Gladykowski
License: GNU General Public License v3.0
alram is written in C. Learn C with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
| Process Memory Tools | |
|---|---|
| ps_mem | Accurately reports memory usage of programs |
| pscircle | Visualizes Linux processes in a form of radial tree |
| psrecord | Record the CPU and memory activity of a process |
| smem2 | Reports on memory usage on Linux systems |
| process-mem | Display memory used by processes |
| process-map | Visualize the virtual memory of a process |
| Smemstat | Reports the physical memory usage |
| mstat | Measure memory usage of a program over time |
| alram | Helps when available memory is below threshold, with optional task killer |
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