To make options such as this permanent you’ll typically add them to the file /etc/sysctl.conf. You can see a full list of the options available using this command:

$ sysctl -a 

Example

$ sudo sysctl -a | head -5 kernel.sched_child_runs_first = 0 kernel.sched_min_granularity_ns = 6000000 kernel.sched_latency_ns = 18000000 kernel.sched_wakeup_granularity_ns = 3000000 kernel.sched_shares_ratelimit = 750000 

You can look for hugepage in the output like so:

$ sudo sysctl -a | grep hugepage vm.nr_hugepages = 0 vm.nr_hugepages_mempolicy = 0 vm.hugepages_treat_as_movable = 0 vm.nr_overcommit_hugepages = 0 

It’s not there?

However looking through the output I did not see transparent_hugepage. Googling a bit more I did come across this Oracle page which discusses this very topic. The page is titled: Configuring HugePages for Oracle on Linux (x86-64).

Specifically on that page they mention how to disable the hugepage feature.

excerpt

The preferred method to disable Transparent HugePages is to add “transparent_hugepage=never” to the kernel boot line in the “/etc/grub.conf” file.

   title Oracle Linux Server (2.6.39-400.24.1.el6uek.x86_64)             root (hd0,0)             kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.39-400.24.1.el6uek.x86_64 ro root=/dev/mapper/vg_ol6112-lv_root rd_NO_LUKS  KEYBOARDTYPE=pc KEYTABLE=uk     LANG=en_US.UTF-8 rd_NO_MD SYSFONT=latarcyrheb-sun16  rd_NO_DM rd_LVM_LV=vg_ol6112/lv_swap rd_LVM_LV=vg_ol6112/lv_root rhgb quiet numa=off     transparent_hugepage=never             initrd /initramfs-2.6.39-400.24.1.el6uek.x86_64.img 

The server must be rebooted for this to take effect.

Alternatively you can add the command to your /etc/rc.local file.

if test -f /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/enabled; then    echo never > /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/enabled fi if test -f /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/defrag; then    echo never > /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/defrag fi 

I think I would go with the 2nd option, since the first will be at risk of getting unset when you upgrade from one kernel to the next.

You can confirm that it worked with the following command after rebooting:

$ cat /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/enabled always madvise [never]