diff --git a/Documentation/sysctl/kernel.txt b/Documentation/sysctl/kernel.txt
index fd65f4e651d5..e1d375df4f28 100644
--- a/Documentation/sysctl/kernel.txt
+++ b/Documentation/sysctl/kernel.txt
@@ -559,8 +559,9 @@ scanned for a given scan.
 oops_limit:
 
 Number of kernel oopses after which the kernel should panic when
-``panic_on_oops`` is not set. Setting this to 0 or 1 has the same effect
-as setting ``panic_on_oops=1``.
+``panic_on_oops`` is not set. Setting this to 0 disables checking
+the count. Setting this to  1 has the same effect as setting
+``panic_on_oops=1``. The default value is 10000.
 
 ==============================================================
 
diff --git a/kernel/exit.c b/kernel/exit.c
index 5cd8a3425765..b2f0aaf6bee7 100644
--- a/kernel/exit.c
+++ b/kernel/exit.c
@@ -986,7 +986,7 @@ void __noreturn make_task_dead(int signr)
 	 * To make sure this can't happen, place an upper bound on how often the
 	 * kernel may oops without panic().
 	 */
-	if (atomic_inc_return(&oops_count) >= READ_ONCE(oops_limit))
+	if (atomic_inc_return(&oops_count) >= READ_ONCE(oops_limit) && oops_limit)
 		panic("Oopsed too often (kernel.oops_limit is %d)", oops_limit);
 
 	do_exit(signr);