Currently, the vm.panic_on_oom sysctl is a boolean. If set to 0, the VM system kills the largest process. If set to any other value, the VM system panics.
This change makes it a count of events. If set to 0, the VM system kills the largest process. If set to any other value, the VM system will kill the largest process until it has seen the specified number of out-of-memory events. Once it reaches the specified number of events, it will panic.
This change is helpful in capturing cores when the system is in a perpetual cycle of out-of-memory events (as opposed to just hitting one or two sporadic out-of-memory events).