diff --git a/libutil/util_file.c b/libutil/util_file.c
index 9bba5579..7de159cc 100644
--- a/libutil/util_file.c
+++ b/libutil/util_file.c
@@ -544,19 +544,6 @@ int util_file_read_va(const char *path, const char *fmt, ...)
 	return ret;
 }
 
-/**
- * Print an error message indicating an out-of-memory situation and exit.
- */
-static void oom(void)
-{
-	fprintf(stderr, "Out of memory\n");
-
-	/* We can't rely on our clean-up routines to work reliably during an
-	 * OOM situation, so just exit here.
-	 */
-	exit(UTIL_EXIT_OUT_OF_MEMORY);
-}
-
 /**
  * Read all data from @fd and return address of resulting buffer in
  * @buffer_ptr. If @size_ptr is non-zero, use it to store the size of the
@@ -576,9 +563,7 @@ util_exit_code_t util_file_read_fd_buf(FILE *fd, void **buffer_ptr,
 	size_t done = 0;
 
 	while (!feof(fd)) {
-		buffer = realloc(buffer, done + READ_CHUNK_SIZE);
-		if (!buffer)
-			oom();
+		buffer = util_realloc(buffer, done + READ_CHUNK_SIZE);
 		done += fread(&buffer[done], 1, READ_CHUNK_SIZE, fd);
 		if (ferror(fd)) {
 			free(buffer);
@@ -586,9 +571,7 @@ util_exit_code_t util_file_read_fd_buf(FILE *fd, void **buffer_ptr,
 		}
 	}
 
-	buffer = realloc(buffer, done);
-	if (!buffer && done > 0)
-		oom();
+	buffer = util_realloc(buffer, done);
 
 	*buffer_ptr = buffer;
 	if (size_ptr)
@@ -635,9 +618,7 @@ char *util_file_read_fd(FILE *fd, int chomp)
 		done--;
 
 	/* NULL-terminate. */
-	buffer = realloc(buffer, done + 1);
-	if (!buffer)
-		oom();
+	buffer = util_realloc(buffer, done + 1);
 	buffer[done] = 0;
 
 	return buffer;
diff --git a/libutil/util_libc.c b/libutil/util_libc.c
index 00b33ee3..d038a7dc 100644
--- a/libutil/util_libc.c
+++ b/libutil/util_libc.c
@@ -89,6 +89,11 @@ void *__util_realloc(const char *func, const char *file, int line,
 {
 	void *buf;
 
+	if (size == 0) {
+		free(ptr);
+		return NULL;
+	}
+
 	buf = realloc(ptr, size);
 
 	if (buf == NULL)
diff --git a/libutil/util_scandir.c b/libutil/util_scandir.c
index 73308ad2..997ba8a9 100644
--- a/libutil/util_scandir.c
+++ b/libutil/util_scandir.c
@@ -68,7 +68,7 @@ static int __scandir(struct dirent ***de_vec, const char *path,
 			continue;
 		de_new = util_malloc(sizeof(*de_new));
 		*de_new = *de;
-		de_vec_new = realloc(de_vec_new, sizeof(void *) * (count + 1));
+		de_vec_new = util_realloc(de_vec_new, sizeof(void *) * (count + 1));
 		de_vec_new[count++] = de_new;
 	}
 	closedir(dirp);