cannot fork, too many processes

[horse123]

Hi,
We are running an application to access Oracle database on a Unix Solaris 5 Server. There are 65 -85 users and we get message as "cannot fork, too many processes" no more users can login the application.
I checked the swap space got the following info:
dev swaplo blocks free
/dev/vx/dsk/swapvol 253,8 16 50320304 50320304

then I check the disk space got the following info:
/dev/vx/dsk/rootvol 12392140 3767728 8500491 31% /
/proc 0 0 0 0% /proc
mnttab 0 0 0 0% /etc/mnttab
fd 0 0 0 0% /dev/fd
/dev/vx/dsk/var 8263373 710975 7469765 9% /var
swap 66391232 40 66391192 1% /var/run
swap 66391792 600 66391192 1% /tmp
/dev/vx/dsk/s 16666922 7573166 8927087 46% /s_bak
/dev/vx/dsk/database 8263373 2664661 5516079 33% /database
/dev/vx/dsk/unicorn/oradb-30g
29491064 13249037 13292921 50% /database/oradata
/dev/vx/dsk/unicorn/unicorn_s_35g
34406244 15348195 15617425 50% /s
/dev/vx/dsk/unicorn/unicorn_unic
983020 2154 882564 1% /database/admin/unic

Is there any problem? Thanks in advance

John

 

[PHV]

You may have to look at the output of ps -fe command to see which user owns too many processes. If this isn't the case then the wide system limit is reached and you may have to consider to tune kernel parameters if you haven't discovered much of strange things.
Anyway you may get more accurate answers in a Solaris forum.

Hope This Help, PH.
Want to get great answers to your Tek-Tips questions? Have a look at FAQ219-2884

 

[KenCunningham]

Check your processes parameter in the $ORACLE_HOME/dbs/init<SID>.ora file and increase if necessary. At the OS level (at least in Solaris 7/8), the kernel parameters are set in file /etc/system

'Typical' (well, for us anyway!) entries for Oracle in /etc/system are:

set shmsys:shminfo_shmmax = 4294967295
set shmsys:shminfo_shmmin = 1
set shmsys:shminfo_shmmni = 100
set shmsys:shminfo_shmseg = 10
set semsys:seminfo_semmns = 2048
set semsys:seminfo_semmni = 500
set semsys:seminfo_semmsl = 500

HTH.