linux error 23 : too many open files

[hermansantoso]

Hi,

I am a newbie in linux system, and currently we face the problem
something related with linux error 23 : too many open files in
the system.

I don't know exactly what happens with our system, but it seems
after several days, the error always occurs.
sometimes it mentioned "lib not found", and if that happend, we
no longer can do even a simple command like "ls".

our server has 1 G memory, and I wonder wheter we can access the
whole memory or not.
since as far as I know, in MS-DOS, although we have 1 M memory,
basically what we can access only 640K.
how about ini linux ?

in our server, we put JRun and oracle databases.
we use linux red hat 6.2

rgds
herman

 

[MrTom]

sounds like something you are running has got a nasty memory leak. you could be out of memory or your java code may "open" a file and not "close" it.

if you run "top" periodically you'll probably be able to see the broken application grow. you can sort processes in top by their memory usage by hitting "M".

linux will handle you 1gb memory with no problem. in 2.2 kernels the maximum is 2gb and in the 2.4 kernel it's at least 4gb. running "free" will verify how much memory can be addressed.

 

[MrTom]

ah! i just remembered that with oracle you need to change some kernel parameters through /proc/ so that oracle will run properly.

this is definately in the oracle/linux installation instructions so go check those!

this will almost certainly be the problem.

 

[Tarquin]

If you other replies haven't helped I think the default value of 'filemax' needs to be increased otherwise usage of the server by users is severely limited.

In file “/etc/rc.d/rc2.d/S99local” value “filemax” needs to be increased to “16384” so add the following line:

echo ‘16384’ > /proc/sys/fs/filemax

16384 may not be the value you need and you can try less or more.

RH7.1 has a graphical tool for altering this and similar items.

 

[ifincham]

Hi,

Yes, as above, you may need to increase the number of file-handles and inodes.

echo 12345 > /proc/sys/fs/file-max
echo 12345 > /proc/sys/fs/inode-max

A guideline is 256 file handles per 4mb of ram. Inode-max would be perhaps 3 times flie-max.

Rgds