Kernel panic reboot
By default after a kernel panic Linux just sits there and waits for a user to hit the restart button. That can be a bad thing if it’s a remote server.
Checking if enabled
To check if its enabled try this:
# cat /proc/sys/kernel/panic 0
The returned 0 is the time the kernel will wait before it reboots. If it is 0 or lower, it won’t reboot by itself.
Enabling kernel panic reboot
To set the kernel to reboot do this command
# echo "5" > /proc/sys/kernel/panic
Where 5 is replaced with the number of seconds to wait till reboot after a kernel panic.
To check the time was set right do this:
# cat /proc/sys/kernel/panic 5
Making it permanent
To make it more permanent do this:
# echo "kernel.panic=5" >> /etc/sysctl.conf
Adding the following to your kernel parameters in your bootloaders configuration might also help:
panic=5
NOTE: Substitute 5 with the number of seconds to wait till reboot after a kernel panic.