Warning when available RAM approaches zero

Check these scripts: Need application/script alerting when system memory is running out

#!/bin/bash

#Minimum available memory limit, MB
THRESHOLD=400

#Check time interval, sec
INTERVAL=30

while :
do

    free=$(free -m|awk '/^Mem:/{print $4}')
    buffers=$(free -m|awk '/^Mem:/{print $6}')
    cached=$(free -m|awk '/^Mem:/{print $7}')
    available=$(free -m | awk '/^-\/+/{print $4}')

    message="Free $free""MB"", buffers $buffers""MB"", cached $cached""MB"", available $available""MB"""

    if [ $available -lt $THRESHOLD ]
        then
        notify-send "Memory is running out!" "$message"
    fi

    echo $message

    sleep $INTERVAL

done

PHP:

#!/usr/bin/php
<?php
$alert_percent=($argc>1)?(int)$argv[1]:90;
//$interval=($argc>2):(int)$argv[2]:25;



//while(true)
//{
 exec("free",$free);

$free=implode(' ',$free);
preg_match_all("/(?<=\s)\d+/",$free,$match);

list($total_mem,$used_mem,$free_mem,$shared_mem,$buffered_mem,$cached_mem)=$match[0];

$used_mem-=($buffered_mem+$cached_mem);

$percent_used=(int)(($used_mem*100)/$total_mem);

if($percent_used>$alert_percent)
exec("notify-send 'Low Memory: $percent_used% used'");

//sleep($interval);
//}
exit();
?>

Another script that I wrote for this purpose:

#!/bin/bash
# Copyright 2019, Mikko Rantalainen
# License: MIT X License

# Minimum available memory until warning, default to 10% of total RAM (MiB)
THRESHOLD=$(grep "MemTotal:" /proc/meminfo | awk '{ printf "%d", 0.1*$2/1024}')
INTERVAL=60s

echo "Emitting a warning if less than $THRESHOLD MiB of RAM is available..."

while true; do
    meminfo=$(cat /proc/meminfo)
    free=$(echo "$meminfo" | grep "MemFree:" | awk '{ printf "%d", $2/1024}')
    available=$(echo "$meminfo" | grep "MemAvailable:" | awk '{ printf "%d", $2/1024}')
    inactive=$(echo "$meminfo" | grep "Inactive:" | awk '{ printf "%d", $2/1024}')
    reclaimable=$(echo "$meminfo" | grep "SReclaimable:" | awk '{ printf "%d", $2/1024}')
    usable=$(echo "$free + $inactive / 2 + $reclaimable / 2" | bc)
    if test -z "$available"; then
        message="Current kernel does not support MemAvailable in /proc/meminfo, aborting"
        notify-send "Error while monitoring low memory" "$message"
        echo "$message" 1>&2
        exit 1
    fi

    message="Available: $available MiB
Free: $free MiB
Maybe usable: $usable MiB"

    if [ "$available" -lt "$THRESHOLD" ]
        then
        notify-send -u critical "Low memory warning" "$message"
        echo "Low memory warning:"
    echo "$message"
    fi

    #echo "DEBUG: $message"
    sleep $INTERVAL
done

This cron job that runs every 1 min

* * * * * if [ $(free -wm | awk ' /^Mem:/ { print $8 } ') -le 400 ]; then XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/run/user/$(id -u) notify-send 'Short on memory!'; fi

To add it you run crontab -e and paste it at the bottom. You have to have cron installed

Updated above script to also add details on top 3 memory-hungry processes. See at https://github.com/romanmelko/ubuntu-low-mem-popup

Here is the script itself:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

set -o errexit
set -o pipefail
set -o nounset

# If the language is not English, free will output localized text and parsing fails
LANG=en_US.UTF-8

THRESHOLD=500
INTERVAL=300
POPUP_DELAY=999999

# sleep some time so the shell starts properly
sleep 60

while :
do
    available=$(free -mw | awk '/^Mem:/{print $8}')
    if [ $available -lt $THRESHOLD ]; then
        title="Low memory! $available MB available"
        message=$(top -bo %MEM -n 1 | grep -A 3 PID | awk '{print $(NF - 6) " \t" $(NF)}')
        # KDE Plasma notifier
        kdialog --title "$title" --passivepopup "$message" $POPUP_DELAY
        # use the following command if you are not using KDE Plasma, comment the line above and uncomment the line below
        # please note that timeout for notify-send is represented in milliseconds
        # notify-send -u critical "$title" "$message" -t $POPUP_DELAY
    fi
    sleep $INTERVAL
done

Variant using RAM available, percentages and displays desktop notifications when called by cron (i.e. loop script doesn't have to be started after reboot):

#!/usr/bin/env bash

# dbus env var required when called via cron:
eval "export $(egrep -z DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS /proc/$(pgrep -u $LOGNAME gnome-session)/environ | tr '\0' '\n')";

AVAIL_THRESHOLD=5

free_output=$(free)
mem_total=$(awk '/^Mem:/{print $2}' <<< $free_output)
mem_avail=$(awk '/^Mem:/{print $7}' <<< $free_output)
mem_avail_m=$(bc <<< "scale=1; $mem_avail/1024")
percent_avail=$(bc <<< "scale=1; $mem_avail*100 /$mem_total")
should_warn=$(bc <<< "$percent_avail < $AVAIL_THRESHOLD")

if (( $should_warn )); then
    notify-send "Memory warning - only $percent_avail% ($mem_avail_m MB) available"
else
    echo "Memory OK - $percent_avail% ($mem_avail_m MB) available"
fi

Updated version of the script which works with free from procps-ng 3.3.10

#!/bin/bash

#Minimum available memory limit, MB
THRESHOLD=400

#Check time interval, sec
INTERVAL=30

while :
do
    free_out=$(free -w -m)
    available=$(awk '/^Mem:/{print $8}' <<<$free_out)

    if (( $available < $THRESHOLD ))
        then
        notify-send -u critical "Memory is running out!" "Available memory is $available MiB"
        echo "Warning - available memory is $available MiB"    
    fi

    cat <<<$free_out
    sleep $INTERVAL
done

I've created simple program which triggers linux notification and check ram interval of 5 seconds if RAM goes more than equal to 80 then it triggers notifications.

# Get cpu usage of last minitue
avg_cpu_use=$(uptime)
IFS=',' read -ra avg_cpu_use_arr <<<"$avg_cpu_use"
avg_cpu_use=""

for i in "${avg_cpu_use_arr[@]}"; do
    :
    if [[ $i == *"load average"* ]]; then
        avg_cpu_use=$i
        break
    fi
done

avg_cpu_use=$(echo ${avg_cpu_use:16}) # Remove "  load average: "

if [[ -z "${avg_cpu_use// /}" ]]; then
    avg_cpu_use="CPU: N/A%"
    exit -1
else
    avg_cpu_use="CPU: ${avg_cpu_use}%"
fi

# Get RAM usage
ram_use=$(free -m)
IFS=$'\n' read -rd '' -a ram_use_arr <<<"$ram_use"
ram_use="${ram_use_arr[1]}"
ram_use=$(echo "$ram_use" | tr -s " ")
IFS=' ' read -ra ram_use_arr <<<"$ram_use"
total_ram="${ram_use_arr[1]}"
ram_use="${ram_use_arr[2]}"
ram_use="RAM: ${ram_use}/${total_ram} MB"

while true; do
    echo "Sys check....."
    base=80
    ram_percent=$((ram_use_arr[2] * 100 / ram_use_arr[1]))
    if [ $ram_percent -ge $base ]; then
        zenity --notification --text "RAM: ${ram_percent}% ${avg_cpu_use}"
    else
        echo "All Good..."
    fi
    sleep 5
done