Letsencrypt-auto Error [Errno 12] Cannot allocate memory

Hello,

I am trying to install Lets Encrypt on my vServer running Debian 8 by the letsencrypt autoscript letsencrypt-auto using the following commands:

git clone https://github.com/letsencrypt/letsencrypt
cd letsencrypt
./letsencrypt-auto

After a while the process stopped showing this output:

Creating virtual environment…
Updating letsencrypt and virtual environment dependencies… Error [Errno 12] Cannot allocate memory while executing command python setup.py egg_info
Exception:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “/root/.local/share/letsencrypt/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pip/basecommand.py”, line 211, in main
status = self.run(options, args)
File “/root/.local/share/letsencrypt/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pip/commands/install.py”, line 294, in run
requirement_set.prepare_files(finder)
File “/root/.local/share/letsencrypt/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pip/req/req_set.py”, line 334, in prepare_files
functools.partial(self._prepare_file, finder))
File “/root/.local/share/letsencrypt/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pip/req/req_set.py”, line 321, in _walk_req_to_install
more_reqs = handler(req_to_install)
File “/root/.local/share/letsencrypt/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pip/req/req_set.py”, line 505, in _prepare_file
abstract_dist.prep_for_dist()
File “/root/.local/share/letsencrypt/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pip/req/req_set.py”, line 123, in prep_for_dist
self.req_to_install.run_egg_info()
File “/root/.local/share/letsencrypt/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pip/req/req_install.py”, line 410, in run_egg_info
command_desc=‘python setup.py egg_info’)
File “/root/.local/share/letsencrypt/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pip/utils/init.py”, line 702, in call_subprocess
cwd=cwd, env=env)
File “/usr/lib/python2.7/subprocess.py”, line 710, in init
errread, errwrite)
File “/usr/lib/python2.7/subprocess.py”, line 1231, in _execute_child
self.pid = os.fork()
OSError: [Errno 12] Cannot allocate memory

Can you please help me on this?

Do you know who much memory you have free ? There has been a discussion I’ve seen about minimum memory requirements, so it would be good to know your values to see if that’s the cause and what that limit is … ( free -m should give you the info )

not very much :wink:

How much do I need?

yeah a few issues logged and forum thread

I’d add some swap space ( relatively quick and easy to add a swap file ) which will probably get you round the issue.

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